Behold me, now, for the fourth year,
preparing for my death. Having withdrawn from the business of the world to a
place of repose, I give myself up to the meditation of the Sacred Scriptures,
and to writing the thoughts that occur to me in my meditations; so that if I am
no longer able to be of use by word of mouth, or the composition of voluminous
works, I may at least be of some use to my brethren, by these pious little
books. Whilst then I was reflecting as to what would be the most eligible
subject both to prepare me to die well, and to assist others to live well, the
Death of our Lord occurred to me, together with the last sermon which the
Redeemer of the world preached from the Cross, as from an elevated pulpit, to
the human race. This sermon consists of seven short but weighty sentences, and
in these seven words is comprised everything of which our Lord spoke when He
said: "Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and all things shall be accomplished which
were written by the Prophets concerning the Son of Man."[1] The things which the
Prophets foretold about Christ may be reduced to four heads: His sermons to the
people; His prayer to His Father; the great torments He endured; and the sublime
and admirable works He performed. Now these things were verified in a wonderful
manner in the Life of Christ, for our Lord was ever most diligent in preaching
to the people. He preached in the Temple, in the synagogues, in the fields, in
deserts, in private houses, nay, He preached even from a ship to the people who
were standing on the shore. It was His wont to spend nights in prayer to God:
for so says the evangelist "He passed the whole night in the prayer of God."[2]
His admirable works of casting out devils, of curing the sick, of multiplying
loaves, of allaying storms,[3] are to be read in every page of the Gospels.
Again, the injuries that were heaped upon Him, in return for the good He had
done, were many. They consisted not only in contumelious words, but also in
stoning[4] and in casting Him down headlong.[5] In a word, all these things were
truly consummated on the Cross. His preaching from the Cross was so powerful
that "all the multitude returned striking their breasts,"[6] and not only the
hearts of men but even rocks were rent asunder. He prayed on the Cross, as the
Apostle says, "with a strong cry and tears," so that He "was heard for His
reverence."[7] He suffered so much on the Cross, in comparison to what He had
suffered during the rest of His life, that suffering seems only to belong to His
Passion. Finally, He never wrought greater signs and prodigies than when on the
Cross He seemed to be reduced to the greatest weakness and infirmity. He then
not only showed signs from heaven, which the Jews had previously asked of Him
even to importunity, but a little while after He showed the greatest of all
signs. For after He was dead and buried He rose again from the dead by His own
power, recalling His Body to life, even to an immortal life. Truly then may we
say that on the Cross was consummated everything that had been written by the
Prophets concerning the Son of Man.

But before I begin to write on the words which our Lord
spoke from the Cross, it seems proper that I should say something of the Cross
itself, which was the pulpit of the Preacher, the altar of the Sacrificing
Priest, the arena of the Combatant, the workshop of the Wonder-worker. The
ancients commonly agree in saying that the Cross was made of three pieces of
wood; one upright, along which the body of the crucified person was stretched;
another transverse, to which the hands were fastened; and the third was attached
to the lower part of the cross, on which the feet of the condemned rested, but
fastened by nails to prevent their moving about. The ancient Fathers of the
Church agree in this opinion, as St. Justin[8] and St. Irenaeus.[9] These
authors, moreover, clearly indicate that each foot rested on the foot-board, and
that one foot was not placed over the other. Hence it follows that Christ was
nailed to the Cross with four nails, and not with three, as many imagine, who in
pictures represent Christ, our Lord, as nailed to the Cross with one foot over
the other. Gregory of Tours,[10] distinctly says the contrary, and confirms his
view by an appeal to ancient pictures. I, for my part, have seen in the Royal
Library at Paris, some very ancient manuscripts of the Gospels, which contained
many pictures of Christ crucified, and these all had the four
nails.

St. Augustine,[11] and St. Gregory of Nyssa,[12] say that
the upright piece of the Cross projected a little from the transverse piece. It
would seem that the Apostle also insinuates the same, for in his Epistle to the
Ephesians St. Paul writes: "That you may be able to comprehend with all the
saints, what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth."[13] This is
clearly a description of the figure of the Cross, which has four extremes;
breadth in the transverse piece; length in the upright piece; height in that
part of the Cross which stood out and projected from the transverse part; and
depth in the part which was buried in the earth. Our Lord did not endure the
torments of the Cross by chance, or unwillingly, since He had chosen this kind
of death from all eternity, as St. Augustine[14] teaches from the testimony of
the Apostle: "Jesus of Nazareth being delivered up, by the determinate counsel
and fore-knowledge of God, you by the hands of wicked men have crucified and
slain."[15] And so Christ, at the beginning of His preaching, said to Nicodemus:
"As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted
up, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life
everlasting."[16] He often spoke to His Apostles about His Cross, and encouraged
them to imitate Him by the words: " If any man will come after Me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross and follow Me."[17]

Our Lord alone knows the reason that induced Him to choose
this manner of death. The holy Fathers, however, have thought of some mystical
reasons, and have left them to us in their writings. St. Irenaeus, in the work
of his to which we have referred, says that the words, "JESUS OF NAZARETH, KING
OF THE JEWS," were written over that part of the Cross where the two arms meet,
to give us to understand, that the two nations, of Jew and Gentile, which had up
to that time been estranged from each other, were henceforth to be united into
one body under the one Head, Christ. St. Gregory of Nyssa, in his sermon on the
Resurrection, says that the part of the Cross which looked towards heaven, shows
that heaven is to be opened by the Cross as by a key; that the part which w as
buried in the earth shows that hell was despoiled by Christ when He descended
thither; and that the two arms of the Cross, which stretched towards the cast
and west, show the regeneration of the whole world by the Blood of Christ. St.
Jerome, on the Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Augustine,[18] in his Epistle to
Honoratus, St. Bernard, in the fifth book of his work on "Consideration," teach
that the principal mystery of the Cross was briefly touched upon by the Apostle
in the words: "What is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth."[19] The
primary signification of these words points to the attributes of God; the height
signifies His power; the depth, His wisdom; the breadth, His goodness; the
length, His eternity. They have reference also to the virtues of Christ in His
Passion; the breadth, His charity; the length, His patience; the height, His
obedience; the depth, His humility. They signify, moreover, the virtues which
are necessary for those who are saved through Christ. The depth of the Cross
means faith; the height, hope; the breadth, charity; the length, perseverance.
From this we gather that only charity, the queen of virtues, finds a place
everywhere, in God, in Christ, and in ourselves. Of the other virtues, some are
proper to God, others to Christ, and others to us. Consequently it is not
wonderful that in His last words from the Cross, which we are now going to
explain, Christ should give the first place to words of
charity.

We shall therefore begin by explaining the first three
words which were spoken by Christ about the sixth hour, before the sun was
obscured and darkness overspread the earth. We shall then consider this eclipse
of the sun, and finally come to the explanation of the other words of our Lord,
which were spoken about the ninth hour,[20] when the darkness was disappearing,
and the Death of Christ was at hand.

CHAPTER I: The literal
explanation of the first Word, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what
they do."

Christ Jesus, the Word of the Eternal Father, of Whom the
Father Himself hath spoken, "Hear ye Him,"[1] and Who hath said of Himself, "For
One is your Master, Christ,"[2] in order to perform the task He had undertaken,
never ceased from instructing us. Not only during His life, but even in the arms
of death, from the pulpit of the Cross, He preached to us words few in number,
but burning with love, most useful and efficacious, and in every way worthy to
be engraven on the heart of every Christian, to be preserved there, meditated
upon, and fulfilled literally and in deed. His first word is this, "And Jesus
said: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."[3] Which prayer, as
though it were altogether new and unheard of before, the Holy Spirit wished to
be foretold by the Prophet Isaias in these words: "And He prayed for the evil
doers."[4] And the petitions of our Lord on the Cross prove how truly the
Apostle St. Paul spoke when he said: " Charity seeketh not her own,"[5] for of
the seven words our Redeemer spoke three were for the good of others, three for
His own good, and one was common both to Himself and to us. His first care,
however, was for others. He thought of Himself last.

Of the first three words which He spoke, the first was for
His enemies, the second for His friends, the third for His relations. Now, the
reason why He thus prayed, is that the first demand of charity is to succour
those who are in want: and those who were then most in want of spiritual succour
were His enemies; and what we also, the disciples of so great a Master, stand
most in need of is to love our enemies, a virtue which we know is most difficult
to be obtained and rarely to be met with, whereas the love of our friends and
relations is easy and natural, increases with our years, and often predominates
more than it ought. Wherefore the Evangelist wrote, "And Jesus said:"[6] where
the word and shows the time and the occasion of this prayer for His enemies, and
places in contrast the words of the Sufferer and the words of the executioners,
His works and their works; as though the Evangelist would explain himself more
fully thus: they were crucifying the Lord, and in His very presence were
dividing His garments amongst them, they mocked and defamed Him as a seducer and
a liar; whilst He, seeing what they were doing, hearing what they were saying,
and suffering the most acute pains in His Hands and Feet, returned good for evil
and prayed; " Father, forgive them."

He calls Him "Father," not God or Lord, because He wished
Him to exercise the benignity of a Father and not the severity of a Judge; and
as He desired to avert the anger of God, which He knew was aroused at their
enormous crimes, He uses the tender name of Father. The word Father appears to
contain in itself this request: I, Thy Son, in the midst of all My torments have
pardoned them; do you likewise, My Father, extend your pardon to them. Although
they deserve it not, still pardon them for the sake of Me, your Son. Remember,
too, that you are their Father, since you have created them, and made them to
your own image and likeness. Show them therefore a Father's love, for although
they are wicked, they are nevertheless your children.

"Forgive." This word contains the chief petition which the
Son of God, as the advocate for His enemies, made to His Father. The word
Forgive may be referred both to the punishment due to the crime, and also to the
crime itself. If it be referred to the punishment due to the crime, then was the
prayer heard: for since this sin of the Jews demanded that its perpetrators
should be instantly and condignly made to feel the wrath of God, by either being
consumed with fire from heaven, or drowned in a second deluge, or extirpated
with famine and the sword, still the infliction of this punishment was postponed
for forty years, during which period, if the Jewish people had done penance they
would have been saved and their city preserved, but because they did not perform
penance, God sent against them the Roman army, which, in the reign of Vespasian,
destroyed their metropolis, and partly by famine during the siege, and partly by
the sword in the sack of the city, slew a vast multitude of its inhabitants,
whilst the survivors w ere sold into slavery and scattered throughout the world.
All these misfortunes were foretold by our Lord in the parables of the
householder who hired labourers for his vineyard; of the king who made a
marriage for his son; of the barren fig-tree; and more clearly when He wept over
the city on Palm Sunday. Our Lord's prayer was also heard if it had reference to
the crime of the Jews, since it obtained for many the grace of compunction and
reformation of life. There were some who " returned striking their breasts."[7]
There was the Centurion, who said, "Truly this was the Son of God."[8] And there
were many who a few weeks afterwards were converted by the preaching of the
Apostles, and confessed Him Whom they denied, adored Him Whom they had despised.
But the reason why the grace of conversion was not granted to all is that the
will of Christ was conformable to the wisdom and the will of God, which St. Luke
shows us when he says in the Acts of the Apostles, "As many as were ordained to
life everlasting, believed."[9]

"Them." This word applied to all for whose pardon Christ
prayed. In the first place it is applied to those who really nailed Christ to
the Cross, and cast lots for His garments. It may also be extended to all who
were the cause of our Lord's Passion: to Pilate who pronounced the sentence; to
the people who cried out, " Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him;"[10] to
the chief priests and the scribes who falsely accused Him; and, to proceed still
farther, to the first man and all his posterity who by their sins occasioned
Christ's death. And thus from His Cross our Lord prayed for the forgiveness of
all His enemies. Each one, however, may reckon himself amongst the enemies of
Christ according to the words of the Apostle, " When we were enemies we were
reconciled to God by the death of His Son.[11] Therefore our High Priest Christ
made a commemoration for all of us, even before our birth, in that most holy
"Memento," if I may so speak, which He made in the first Sacrifice of the Mass
which He celebrated on the altar of the Cross. What return then, O my soul, wilt
thou make to the Lord for all that He hath done for thee, even before thou hadst
a being? Our dear Lord saw that thou also wouldst one day rank thyself with His
enemies, and though thou askedst not, nor besoughtest Him, He prayed for thee to
His Father not to lay to thy charge the fault of folly. Does it not therefore
behove thee to bear in mind so sweet a Patron, and to make every effort to serve
Him faithfully in all things? Is it not just that with such an example before
thee thou shouldst learn not only to pardon thy enemies with ease, and to pray
for them, but even bring as many as thou canst to do the same? It is just, and
this I desire and purpose to do, provided that He Who has set me so brilliant an
example would also in His goodness give me sufficient help to accomplish so
great a work.

For they know not what they do. In order that His prayer
might be reasonable, Christ extenuates, or rather gives what excuse He could for
the sins of His enemies. He certainly could not excuse either the injustice of
Pilate, or the cruelty of the soldiers, or the ingratitude of the people, or the
false testimony of those who perjured themselves. It only remained for Him then
to excuse their fault on the plea of ignorance. For with truth does the Apostle
observe, "If they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of
glory."[12] Neither Pilate, nor the chief priests, nor the people knew that
Christ was the Lord of glory, still Pilate knew Him to be a just and holy man,
Who had been delivered up through the envy of the chief priests; and the chief
priests knew Him to be the promised Christ, as St. Thomas teaches, because they
neither could nor did they deny that He had wrought many of the miracles which
the prophets foretold the Messias would work. In fine, the people knew that
Christ had been unjustly condemned, since Pilate publicly told them, "I find no
cause in this Man:"[13] and, "I am innocent of the Blood of this just
Man."[14]

But although the Jews, both priests and people, knew not
the fact that Christ was the Lord of glory, nevertheless, they would not have
remained in this state of ignorance if their malice had not blinded them.
According to the words of St. John: "And whereas He had done so many miracles
before them, they believed not in Him, because Isaias said: He hath blinded
their eyes, and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their eyes,
nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them."[15]
Blindness is no excuse for a blind man, because it is voluntary, accompanying,
not preceding, the evil he does. Similarly those who sin in the malice of their
hearts may always plead their ignorance, which is nevertheless not an excuse for
their sin since it does not precede it but accompanies it. Wherefore the Wise
Man says, " They err who work iniquity."[16] The Philosopher likewise with truth
proclaims every evil-doer to be ignorant of what he does, and consequently it
may ingeniously be said of sinners in general, "They know not what they do." For
no one can desire that which is wicked on the ground of its wickedness, because
the will of man does not tend to what is bad as well as what is good, but solely
to what is good, and for this reason those who make choice of what is bad do so
because the object is presented to them under the aspect of something good, and
may thus be chosen. This results from the disquietude of the inferior part of
the soul which blinds the reason and renders it incapable of distinguishing
anything but what is good in the object it seeks. Thus the man who commits
adultery or is guilty of a theft perpetrates these crimes because he looks only
to the pleasure or the gain which may result, and he would not perpetrate them
if his passions had not blinded him to the shameful infamy of the one and the
injustice of the other. Hence a sinner is like to a man who wishes to throw
himself from an eminence into a river; he first shuts his eyes and then casts
himself headlong; so he who does an evil act hates the light, and labours under
a voluntary ignorance which does not exculpate him, because it is voluntary. But
if voluntary ignorance does not exculpate the sinner, why did our Lord pray,
"Forgive them, for they know not what they do?" To this I answer that the most
straightforward interpretation to be put to our Lord's words is that they were
spoken for His executioners, who were probably entirely ignorant not only of our
Lord's Divinity, but even of His innocence, and simply performed the hangman's
duty. For those, therefore, our Lord most truly said, "Father, forgive them, for
they know not what they do."

Again, if our Lord's prayer be interpreted as applicable to
ourselves who had not then a being, or to that multitude of sinners who were His
contemporaries, but had no knowledge of what was being enacted in Jerusalem,
then did our Lord most truly say, "They know not what they do." Lastly, if He
addressed His Father in behalf of those who were present, and knew that Christ
was the Messias and an innocent Man, then must we confess the charity of Christ
to be such as to wish to palliate as far as possible the sin of His enemies. If
ignorance cannot justify a fault, it may nevertheless serve as a partial excuse,
and the deicide of the Jews would have worn a more heinous aspect had they known
the character of their Victim. Although our Lord was aware that this was not so
much an excuse as a shadow of an excuse, He urged it, forsooth, to show us how
kindly He feels towards the sinner, and how eagerly He would have used a better
defence even for Caiphas and Pilate, had a better and more reasonable apology
presented itself.

CHAPTER II: The first fruit to
be drawn from the consideration of the first Word spoken by Christ on the
Cross.

Having given the literal meaning of the first word spoken
by our Lord on the Cross, our next endeavour must be to gather some of its most
eligible and advantageous fruits. What strikes us most in the first part of
Christ's sermon on the Cross is His ardent charity, which burns with a more
brilliant lustre than we can either know or conceive, according to that which
St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, saying, "To know also the charity of Christ
which surpasseth all knowledge."[1] For in this passage the Apostle informs us
by the mystery of the Cross how the charity of Christ surpasseth our
understanding because it extends beyond the compass of our limited intellect.
For when we suffer any grievous pain, as for example a toothache, or a headache,
or a pain in the eyes, or in any other member of our body, our mind is so
rivetted on this as to be incapable of any exertion; hence we are in no humour
either to receive our friends, or carry on our business. But when Christ was
nailed to the Cross He wore His diadem of thorns, as is clearly shown in the
writings of the ancient Fathers; by Tertullian amongst the Latin Fathers in his
book against the Jews, and amongst the Greek Fathers by Origen in his work upon
St. Matthew, and hence it followed that He could neither lean His Head back, nor
move it from side to side without additional pain. Rough nails held fast His
Hands and Feet, and from the manner in which they tore their way through His
flesh occasioned a most acute and lasting torment. His Body was naked, worn out
with the cruel scourging and the journeyings to and fro, ignominiously exposed
to the gaze of the vulgar, and by its weight was widening with a barbarous and
continual agony the wounds in His Hands and Feet; all which things combined were
the source of much suffering, and as it were of additional crosses. Yet, O
charity! truly surpassing our understanding, He thought no more of His torments
than if He were suffering nothing, and is solicitous only for the salvation of
His enemies; and desiring to screen them from the penalty of their crimes, cries
aloud to His Father, "Father, forgive them." What would He have done if these
wretches had been the victims of an unjust persecution, or had been His friends,
His relations, or His children, and not His enemies, His betrayers and abandoned
parricides? Truly, O most benign Jesus! your charity surpasses our
understanding. I behold your Heart in the midst of such a storm of injuries and
sufferings, like a rock in the midst of the ocean which remains immovable and at
rest, though the billows dash themselves in fury against it. For you see your
enemies are not satisfied with inflicting mortal wounds on your Body, but must
scoff at your patience, and howl in triumph at your ill-treatment; you look upon
them, I say, not as a foe scans his antagonists, but as a father regards his
wandering children, as a doctor listens to the ravings of a delirious patient.
Wherefore you are not angry with them but pity them, and entrust them to the
care of your all-powerful Father, that He would cure them and make them whole.
This is the effect of true charity, to be on good terms with all men, to
consider no one your enemy, and to live at peace with those who hate
peace.

This is what is sung in the Canticle of love about the
virtue of perfect charity. "Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the
floods drown it."[2] The many waters are the many sufferings which our spiritual
miseries, like storms of hell, let loose on Christ through the instrumentality
of the Jews and Gentiles, who represented the dark passions of our heart. Still
this deluge of waters, that is of dolours, could not extinguish the fire of
charity which burnt in the breast of Christ. Therefore the charity of Christ was
greater than this deluge of many waters; and it shone brilliantly in His prayer,
"Father, forgive them." And not only were these many waters incapable of
extinguishing the charity of Christ, but neither in after ages were the storms
of persecution able to overwhelm the charity of the members of Christ. Thus the
charity of Christ, which possessed the heart of St. Stephen, could not be
crushed out by the stones wherewith he was martyred; it was alive there, and he
prayed, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge."[3] In fine, the perfect and
invincible charity of Christ which has been propagated in the hearts of many
thousands of martyrs and confessors, has so stoutly combated the attacks of
visible and invisible persecutors, that it may be said with truth even to the
end of the world, that a sea of suffering shall not extinguish the flame of
charity.

But from the consideration of the Humanity of Christ let us
ascend to the consideration of His Divinity. Great was the charity of Christ as
Man towards His executioners, but greater still will be the charity of Christ as
God, and of the Father, and of the Holy Ghost, at the last day towards all
mankind who have been guilty of acts of enmity towards their Creator, and would,
had they been able, have cast Him out of heaven, have nailed Him to a cross, and
have slain Him. Who can conceive the charity which God bears towards such
ungrateful and wicked creatures ? God did not spare the angels when they sinned,
nor did He give them time for repentance, but He often bears patiently with
sinful men, with blasphemers, and with those who enroll themselves under the
standard of the devil, His enemy; and He not only bears with them, but meanwhile
feeds them and nourishes them, even supports and sustains them, for "in Him we
live and move and are,"[4] as the Apostle says. Nor does He preserve the good
and the just only, but likewise the ungrateful and the wicked, as our Lord
informs us in the Gospel of St. Luke. Nor does our good Lord merely feed and
nourish, support and sustain His enemies, but He often heaps His favours upon
them, gives them talent, increases their riches, makes them honourable, and
raises them to temporal thrones, whilst He all the while patiently awaits their
return from the path of iniquity and perdition.

And to pass over several characteristics of the charity
which God feels towards wicked men, the enemies of His Divine Majesty, each one
of which would require a volume if we dwelt upon them singly, we will confine
ourselves at present to that singular kindness of Christ of which we were
treating. "For has not God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten
Son?"[5] The world is the enemy of God, for "the whole world is seated in
wickedness,"[6] as St. John tells us: and " if any man love the world the
charity of the Father is not in him,"[7] as he says again in another place. St.
James writes, " Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an
enemy of God," and "the friendship of this world is the enmity of God."[8] God
therefore in loving this world cherishes His enemy with the intention of making
it His friend. For this purpose has He sent His Son, "the Prince of Peace,"[9]
that by His means the world might be reconciled to God. Therefore at the birth
of Christ the angels sang, " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
peace."[10] Thus God has loved the world, His enemy, and has taken the first
step towards peace, by giving to it His Son, Who might bring about the
reconciliation by suffering the penalty due to His enemy. The world received not
Christ, increased its guilt, rebelled against the one Mediator, and God inspired
this Mediator to return good for evil by praying for His persecutors. He prayed
and " was heard for His reverence.[11] God patiently awaited to see what
progress the Apostles would make by their preaching in the conversion of the
world; those who did penance received pardon; those who repented not after such
patient forbearance were exterminated by God's just judgment. Therefore from
this first word of Christ we really learn that the charity of God the Father,
Who " so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him may not perish but may have life everlasting,"[12] surpasses
all knowledge.

CHAPTER III. The second fruit
to be drawn from the consideration of the first Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

If men would learn to pardon without a murmur the injuries
they receive, and thus force their enemies to become their friends, we might
learn a second and very salutary lesson by meditating on the first word. The
example of Christ and the Blessed Trinity ought to be a powerful argument to
persuade us to this. For if Christ forgave and prayed for His executioners, what
reason can be alleged why a Christian should not act similarly to his enemies?
If God, our Creator, the Lord and Judge of all men, Who has it in His power to
take instant vengeance on a sinner, awaits his return to repentance, and invites
him to peace and reconciliation with the promise of pardoning his treasons
against the Divine Majesty, why should not a creature imitate this conduct,
particularly if we remember that the pardon of an insult merits a great reward?
We read in the history of St. Engelbert, Archbishop of Cologne, who was murdered
by some enemies who were Iying in wait for him, that at the moment of his death
he prayed for them in the words of our Lord, "Father, forgive them;" and it was
revealed that this action was so pleasing to God, that his soul was carried by
the hands of angels to heaven, and placed amongst the choir of martyrs, where he
received the martyr's crown and palm; and his tomb was rendered famous by the
working of many miracles.

Oh, if Christians would learn how easily they can, if they
wish, acquire inexhaustible treasures, and merit signal degrees of honour and
glory by gaining the mastery over the various agitations of their souls, and
magnanimously despising small and trivial insults, they would certainly not be
so hardhearted and obstinately set against pardon and forgiveness. They argue
that they would act against nature to allow themselves to be unjustly spurned
and outraged by word and deed. For wild animals, which merely follow the
instinct of nature, fiercely attack their enemies the moment they behold them,
and kill them either with their teeth or their claws; so we, at the sight of our
enemy, feel our blood beginning to boil, and our desire of revenge is aroused.
Such reasoning is false; it does not draw a distinction between self-defense
which is lawful, and a spirit of revenge which is unlawful.

No one can find fault with a man who defends himself in a
just cause, and nature teaches us to repel force by force, but it does not teach
us to take upon ourselves to avenge an injury we have received. No one hinders
us from taking precautions necessary to provide against an attack, but the law
of God forbids us to be revengeful. To punish an injustice belongs not to the
private individual but to the public magistrate, and because God is the King of
kings, therefore does He cry out and say, "Revenge to Me; I will
repay."[1]

As to the argument that one animal is carried by its very
nature to attack the animal which is the enemy of its species, I answer that
this is the result of their being irrational animals, which cannot distinguish
between nature and what is vicious in nature. But men, who are endowed with
reason, ought to draw a line between the nature or the person which has been
created by God and is good, and the vice or the sin which is bad and does not
proceed from God. Accordingly, when a man has been insulted, he ought to love
the person of his enemy and hate the insult, and should rather have pity on him
than be angry with him; just as a physician who loves his patients and
prescribes for them with due care, but hates the disease, and endeavours with
all the resources at his command to drive it away, to destroy it and render it
harmless. And this is what the Master and Physician of our souls, Christ our
Lord, teaches when He says, " Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you,
and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you."[2] Christ our Master is
not like the Scribes and Pharisees who sat in the chair of Moses and taught, but
did not put their teaching in practice. When He ascended the pulpit of the Cross
He practiced what He taught, by praying aloud for the enemies whom He loved,
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Now, the reason why the
sight of an enemy makes the blood boil in the very veins of some people is this,
that they are animals who have not yet learnt to bring the motions of the
inferior part of the soul, which are common both to mankind and to the brute
creation, under the domain of reason; whereas spiritual men are not subject to
these motions of the flesh, but know how to keep them in check; are not angry
with those who have injured them, but, on the contrary, pity them, and by
showing them acts of kindness strive to bring them to peace and
unity.

But this it is objected is too difficult and severe a trial
for men of noble birth, who ought to be solicitous for their honour. Nay rather,
the task is an easy one; for, as the Evangelist testifies, "the yoke" of Christ,
Who has laid down this law for the guidance of His followers, "is sweet, and His
burden light;"[3] and "His commandments are not heavy," as St. John affirms.[4]
And if they appear difficult and severe, they appear so because we have little
or no love for God, for nothing is difficult to him who loves, according to the
saying of the Apostle: "Charity is patient, is kind, beareth all things,
believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."[5] Nor is Christ
the only one Who has loved His enemies, although in the perfection with which He
practised the virtue He has surpassed every one else, for the holy Patriarch
Joseph loved with a singular love his brethren who sold him into slavery. And in
the Holy Scripture we read how David most patiently put up with the persecutions
of his enemy Saul, who for a long time sought his death, and when it was in the
power of David to take away the life of Saul he did not slay him. And under the
law of grace the proto-martyr, St. Stephen, imitated the example of Christ by
making this prayer when he was being stoned to death: "Lord, lay not this sin to
their charge;"[6] and St. James the Apostle, the Bishop of Jerusalem, who was
cast head-long from the battlements of the Temple, cried to heaven in the moment
of his death, " Lord, pardon them, for they know not what they do." And St. Paul
writes of himself and of his fellow- Apostles: " We are reviled and we bless; we
are persecuted and we suffer it; we are blasphemed and we entreat."[7] In fine,
many martyrs and innumerable others, after the example of Christ, have found no
difficulty in fulfilling this commandment. But there may be some who will
further argue: I do not deny that we must pardon our enemies, but I will choose
my own time for doing so, when forsooth I have almost forgotten the injustice
which has been done me, and have become calm after the first burst of
indignation has passed. But what would be the thoughts of these people if in the
meantime they were summoned to their last account, and were found without the
garment of charity, and were asked, "How come you in hither, not having on a
wedding garment?"[8] Would they not be struck dumb with amazement as our Lord
pronounces sentence upon them: "Bind him hand and feet, and cast him into the
exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."[9] Act rather
with prudence now, and imitate the conduct of Christ, Who prayed to His Father,
"Father, forgive them," at the moment when He was the object of their scoffs,
when the Blood was trickling drop by drop from His Hands and Feet, and His whole
body was the prey of exquisite tortures. He is the true and only Master, to
Whose voice all should listen who would not be led into error: to Him did the
Eternal Father refer when a voice was heard from heaven saying, "Hear ye
Him."[10] In Him are "all the treasures of the wisdom and of the knowledge" of
God[11] If you could have asked the opinion of Solomon on any point, you might
with safety have followed his advice; but "behold a greater than Solomon
here."[12]

Still I hear some further objecting. If we resolve to
return good for evil, a kindness for an insult, a blessing for a curse, the
wicked will become insolent, scoundrels will become bold, the just will be
oppressed, and virtue will be trodden under foot. This result will not follow,
for often, as the Wise Man says, "A mild answer breaketh wrath."[13] Besides,
the patience of a just man not unfrequently fills his oppressor with admiration,
and persuades him to proffer the hand of friendship. Moreover, we forget that
the State appoints magistrates, kings, and princes, whose duty it is to make the
wicked feel the severity of the law, and provide means for honest men to live a
peaceful and quiet life. And if in some cases human justice is tardy, the
Providence of God, which never allows a wicked act to go unpunished or a good
deed to pass unrewarded, is continually watching over us, and is taking care in
an unforeseen way that the occurrences which evil men think will crush them,
shall tend to the exaltation and the honour of the virtuous. So at least St. Leo
says, " Thou hast been furious, O persecutor of the Church of God; thou hast
been furious with the martyr, and thou hast augmented his glory by increasing
his pain. For what has thy ingenuity devised which has not turned to his honour,
when even the very instruments of his torture have been carried in triumph?" The
same may be said of all martyrs, as well as of the saints of the old law. For
what brought more renown and glory to the Patriarch Joseph than the persecution
of his brethren? Their selling him in their envy to the Ishmaelites was the
occasion of his becoming lord of the whole of Egypt, and prince of all his
brothers.

But omitting these considerations, we will pass in review
the many and great inconveniences those men suffer who, to escape merely a
shadow of dishonour before men, are obstinately determined to have their revenge
on those who have done them any wrong. In the first place, they act the part of
fools by preferring a greater evil to a lesser. For it is a principle
acknowledged on all sides, and declared to us by the Apostle in these words:
"Let us not do evil that there may come good."[14] It follows by consequence
that a greater evil is not to be committed in order to obtain any compensation
for a lesser one. He who receives an injury receives what is called the evil of
a hardship: he who avenges an injury is guilty of what is called the evil of
crime. Now, beyond a doubt, the misfortune of committing a crime is greater than
the misfortune of having to endure a hardship; for though a hardship may make a
man miserable, it does not necessarily make him wicked; a crime, however, makes
him both miserable and wicked; a hardship deprives a man of temporal good, a
crime deprives him of both a temporal and an eternal good. Accordingly he who
would remedy the evil of a hardship by committing a crime is like a man who
would cut off a part of his foot to make a pair of very small shoes fit him,
which would be a sheer act of madness. Nobody is guilty of such folly in his
temporal concerns, yet there are some men so blind to their real interests as
not to fear to offend God mortally in order to escape that which has the
appearance of disgrace, and maintain a semblance of honour in the eyes of men.
For they fall under the displeasure and the wrath of God, and unless they amend
in time and do penance, will have to endure eternal disgrace and torment, and
will forfeit the everlasting honour of being a citizen of heaven. In addition to
this they perform an act most agreeable to the devil and his angels, who urge on
this man to do an unjust thing to that man with the purpose of sowing discord
and enmity in the world. And each one should calmly reflect how disgraceful it
is to please the fiercest enemy of the human race, and to displease Christ.
Besides it occasionally happens that the injured man who longs for revenge
mortally wounds his antagonist and slays him, for which murder he is
ignominiously executed, and all his property is confiscated by the State, or at
least he is forced to go into exile, and both he himself and all his family drag
out a miserable existence. Thus it is that the devil sports with and mocks those
who choose to be fettered with the manacles of a false honour, rather than
become the servants and friends of Christ, the best of Kings, and be reckoned as
the heirs of a kingdom the most vast and the most enduring. Wherefore, since the
foolish men who, in spite of the command of God, refuse to be reconciled with
their enemies, expose themselves to such a total shipwreck, all who are wise
will listen to the doctrine which Christ, the Master of all, has taught us in
the Gospel by His words, and on the Cross by His deeds.

CHAPTER IV: The literal
explanation of the second Word, "Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with
Me in Paradise."

The second word or the second sentence pronounced by Christ
on the Cross, was, according to the testimony of St. Luke, the magnificent
promise He made to the thief who was hanging on a cross beside Him. The promise
was made under the following circumstances. Two thieves were crucified along
with our Lord, one on His right hand, the other on His left, and one of them
added to his past crimes the sin of blaspheming Christ, and of taunting Him for
His want of power to save them, saying--"If Thou be Christ, save Thyself and
us."[1] St. Matthew and St. Mark, indeed, accuse both the thieves of this sin,
but it is more probable that the two Evangelists used the plural for the
singular number, as is frequently done in the Holy Scriptures, as St. Augustine
observes in his work on the Harmony of the Gospels. Thus St. Paul in his Epistle
to the Hebrews, says of the Prophets: "They stopped the mouths of lions, they
were stoned, they were cut asunder, they wandered about in sheepskins and in
goatskins."[2] Still there was only one Prophet, namely Daniel, who stopped the
mouths of lions; there was only one Prophet, namely Jeremias, who was stoned,
and there was only one Prophet, namely Isaias, who was cut asunder. Moreover,
neither St. Matthew nor St. Mark are so explicit on the point as St. Luke, who
says most distinctly, " And one of those robbers who were hanged, blasphemed
Him."[3] However, even granted that both reviled our Lord, there is no reason
why the same man should not at one moment have cursed Him, and at another have
proclaimed His praises.

Nevertheless, the opinion of those who maintain that one of
the blaspheming thieves was converted by Christ's prayer, "Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do," is manifestly at variance with the Gospel
narrative. For St. Luke says that the thief first began to blaspheme Christ
after He had made this prayer; we are consequently driven to adopt the opinion
of St. Augustine and St. Ambrose, who say that only one of the thieves reviled
Him, whilst the other extolled and defended Him; and on this account the good
thief rebuked the blasphemer: "Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art under
the same condemnation?"[4] Happy was the thief from his fellowship with Christ
on the Cross. The rays of Divine light which were beginning to penetrate the
darkness of his soul, made him eager to rebuke the companion of his wickedness,
and convert him to a better life; and this is the full meaning of his rebuke."
Thou, indeed, wishest to imitate the blasphemy of the Jews, who have not yet
learnt to fear the judgments of God, but boast of the victory they fancy they
have achieved by nailing Christ to a cross. They consider themselves free and
safe and are under no apprehension of punishment. But dost not thou, who art
being crucified for thy enormities, dread God's avenging justice? Why addest
thou sin to sin?" Then proceeding from virtue to virtue, and helped on by the
increasing grace of God, he confesses his sins and proclaims Christ to be
innocent. "We, indeed," he says, are "justly" condemned to the death of the
cross, "for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man hath done no
evil."[5] Finally, the light of grace still increasing in his soul, he adds:
"Lord, remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom."[6] Admirable, indeed,
was the grace of the Holy Spirit which was poured into the heart of the good
thief. The Apostle St. Peter denied his Master, the thief confessed Him when He
was nailed to His Cross. The disciples going to Emmaus said, "We hoped that it
was He that should have redeemed Israel."[7] The thief asks with confidence, "
Remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom." The Apostle St. Thomas
declares that he will not believe in the Resurrection until he shall have beheld
Christ; the thief gazing on Christ Whom he saw fastened to a gibbet, never
doubts but that He will be a King after His death.

Who has instructed the thief in mysteries so profound? He
calls that man Lord whom he perceives to be naked, wounded, in grief, insulted,
despised, and hanging on a Cross beside him: he says that after His death He
will come into His kingdom. From which we may learn that the thief did not
picture to himself the kingdom of Christ to be a temporal one, as the Jews
imagined it to be, but that after His death He would be a King for ever in
heaven. Who has been his instructor in secrets so sacred and sublime? No one,
forsooth, unless it be the Spirit of Truth, Who awaited him with His sweetest
benedictions. Christ after His Resurrection said to His Apostle: "Ought not
Christ to have suffered these things, and so enter into His glory?"[8] But the
thief miraculously foreknew this, and confessed Christ to be a King at the time
when not a semblance of royalty surrounded Him. Kings reign during their
lifetime, and when they cease to live they cease to reign; the thief, however,
proclaims aloud that Christ, by means of His death would succeed to a kingdom,
which is what our Lord signifies in the parable: "A certain nobleman went into a
far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return."[9] Our Lord spoke
these words a short time previous to His Passion, to show us that by His death
He would go into a far country, that is to another life; or in other words, that
He would go to heaven which is far removed from the earth, to receive a great
and eternal kingdom, but that He would return at the last day, and would repay
every man according to his conduct in this world, either with reward or with
punishment. Concerning this kingdom, therefore, which Christ would receive
immediately after His death, the thief wisely said: "Remember me when Thou shalt
come into Thy kingdom." But it may be asked, Was not Christ our Lord a King
before His death? Beyond a doubt He was, and therefore the Magi continually
inquired, "Where is He that is born King of the Jews?[10] And Christ Himself
said to Pilate: "Thou sayest that I am a King. For this was I born, and for this
came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth.[11] Yet He was
a King in this world like a traveller amongst strangers, therefore He was not
recognized as a King except by a few, and was despised and ill received by the
majority. And so in the parable we have just quoted, He said that He would go
"into a far country to receive for Himself a kingdom." He did not say He would
gain it as it were from another, but would receive it as His own, and would
return, and the thief wisely remarked, "When Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom."
The kingdom of Christ is not synonymous in this passage with regal power or
sway, for this He exercised from the beginning according to these verses of the
Psalms. "But I am appointed King by Him over Sion, His holy mountain."[12] "He
shall rule from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth."[13]
And Isaias says, " A Child is born to us, and a Son is given to us, and the
government is upon His shoulders."[14] And Jeremias, "I will raise up to David a
just branch: and a King shall reign and shall be wise, and shall execute
judgment and justice in the earth."[15] And Zacharias, "Rejoice greatly, O
daughter of Sion, shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold thy King will
come to thee, the just and Saviour; He is poor, and riding upon an ass, and upon
a colt, the foal of an ass."[16] Therefore in the parable of receiving a
kingdom, Christ did not refer to sovereign power, nor indeed did the good thief
in his petition, "Remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom," but both
spoke of that perfect bliss which delivers man from the servitude and anxiety of
temporal matters, subjects him to God alone, to serve Whom is to reign, and by
Whom he is constituted over all His works. This kingdom of unspeakable bliss of
soul Christ enjoyed from the moment of his conception, but bliss of body which
was His by right He did not actually enjoy until after His Resurrection. For
whilst He was a sojourner in this vale of tears, He was subject to fatigues, to
hunger and to thirst, to injuries, to wounds, and to death. But because His Body
ought always to have been glorious, therefore immediately after death He entered
into the enjoyment of the glory which belonged to Him: and in these terms He
referred to this after His Resurrection: "Ought not Christ to have suffered
these things, and so to have entered into His glory?" This glory He calls His
own, since it is in His power to make others participators of it, and for this
reason He is called the "King of glory," and "Lord of glory," and "King of
kings,"[17] and He Himself says to His Apostles: "I dispose to you a
kingdom."[18] He, indeed, can receive glory and a kingdom, but we can bestow
neither one nor the other, and we are invited to "enter into the joy of thy
Lord,"[19] and not into our own joy. This then is the kingdom of which the good
thief spoke when he said, "When Thou shalt come into Thy
kingdom."

But we must not pass over the many excellent virtues
shadowed forth in the prayer of the holy thief. A brief review of them will
prepare us for Christ's answer to the petition; "Lord, remember me when Thou
shalt come into Thy kingdom." In the first place he calls Him Lord, to show that
he regards himself as a servant, or rather as a redeemed slave, and acknowledges
Christ to be his Redeemer. He then subjoins a simple request, but one full of
faith, hope, love, devotion, and humility--"Remember me." He does not say,
Remember me if Thou canst: for he firmly believes Christ can do all things. He
does not say, Please, Lord, remember me, for he has the fullest confidence in
His charity and compassion. He does not say, I desire, Lord, to reign with you
in your kingdom, for his humility forbade him. In fine, he solicits no special
favour, but simply prays, "Remember me," as though he would say, All I desire,
Lord, is that you would deign to remember me, and cast your benignant eyes upon
me, for I know that you are all-powerful and all-wise, and I put my entire trust
in your goodness and love. It is clear from the concluding words of his prayer,
"When Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom," that he seeks nothing perishable and
vain, but aspires after something eternal and sublime.

We will now give ear to the answer of Christ: "Amen I say
to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise." The word "Amen" was used
by Christ whenever He wished to make a solemn and serious announcement to His
followers. St. Augustine has not hesitated to affirm that this word was, in the
mouth of our Lord, a kind of oath. It could not indeed be an oath, according to
the words of Christ: "But I say to you not to swear at all, but let your speech
be yea, yea; no, no; and that which is over and above these is evil."[20] We
cannot, therefore, conclude that our Lord swore an oath as often as He used the
word Amen. Amen was a term frequently on His lips, and sometimes He not only
prefaced His remarks with Amen, but with Amen, amen. So the remark of St.
Augustine that the word Amen is not an oath, but a kind of oath, is perfectly
just, for the meaning of the word is truly, verily, and when Christ says: Verily
I say to you, He seriously means what He says, and consequently the expression
has almost the same force as an oath. With great reason, therefore, did He thus
address the thief; " Amen I say to you," that is, I assure you in the most
solemn manner I can short of an oath; for the thief might have refused on three
pleas to have given credit to the promise of Christ unless He had solemnly
asseverated it. First, he might have refused credence on account of his
unworthiness to be the recipient of so great a reward, and so high a favour. For
who could have imagined that the thief would have been transferred on a sudden
from a cross to a kingdom? Secondly he might have refused credence by reason of
the person who made the promise, seeing that He was at the moment reduced to the
extreme of want, weakness, and misfortune, and the thief might thus have argued
to himself: If this man cannot do a favour to His friends during His lifetime,
how will He be able to assist them after His death? Lastly, he might have
refused credence by reason of the promise itself. Christ promised Paradise. Now
the Jews interpreted the word Paradise in reference to the body and not to the
soul, since they always used it in the sense of a terrestial Paradise. If our
Lord had meant to say: This day thou shalt be with Me in a place of repose with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the thief might easily have believed Him; but as He
did not mean this, He therefore prefaced His promise with this assurance: "Amen
I say to you."

"This day." He does not say I will place you on My Right
Hand amongst the just at the Day of Judgment. Nor does He say, I will bring you
to a place of rest after some years of suffering in Purgatory. Nor again, I will
console you in a few months or days hence: but this very day, before the sun
sets, you shall pass with Me from the gibbet of the cross to the delights of
Paradise. Wonderful is the liberality of Christ: wonderful also is the good
fortune of the sinner. St. Augustine, in his work on the Origin of the Soul,
considers with St. Cyprian that the thief may be accounted a martyr, and that
his soul went direct to heaven without passing through Purgatory. The good thief
may be called a martyr because he publicly confessed Christ when not even the
Apostles dared say a word in His behalf, and on account of this spontaneous
confession, the death which he suffered in the company of Christ deserved as
great a reward before God as if he had suffered it for the name of Christ. If
our Lord had made no other promise than, " Thou shalt be with Me," this alone
would have been an unspeakable blessing for the thief, since St. Augustine
writes: " Where can there be anything evil with Him, and without Him where can
there be anything good?" Christ indeed did not make any trivial promise to those
who follow Him when He said, " If any man minister to Me, let him follow Me: and
where I am there also shall My minister be."[21] To the thief. however. He
promised not only His companionship, but likewise Paradise.

Although some people have disputed about the meaning of the
word Paradise in this text, there seems to be no ground for the discussion. For
it is certain, since it is an article of faith, that on the very day of His
death the Body of Christ was placed in the sepulchre, and His Soul went down
into Limbus, and it is equally certain that the word Paradise, whether we talk
of the clestial or terrestirial Paradise, cannot be applied either to the
sepulchre or to Limbus. It cannot be applied to the sepulchre, because that was
a most sorry place, the fir abode of corpses, and Christ was the only one buried
in the sepulchre: the thief was buried elsewhere. Moreover, the words, "Thou
shalt be with Me," would not have been accomplished, if Christ had spoken merely
of the sepulchre. Nor can the word Paradise be applied to Limbus. For Paradise
is a garden of delights, and even in the earthly paradise there were flowers and
fruits, limpid waters, and a delicious mildness in the air. In the celestial
Paradise there were delights without end, glory unfailing, and the seats of the
blessed. But in Limbus, where the souls of the just were detained, there was no
light, no cheerfulness, no pleasure; not indeed that these souls were in
suffering, since the hope of their redemption and the prospect of seeing Christ
was a subject of consolation and rejoicing to them, but they were kept like
captives in prison. And in this sense the Apostle, expounding the Prophets,
says, "Ascending on high, He led captivity captive."[22] And Zacharias says, "
Thou also, by the blood of Thy testament, hast sent forth Thy prisoners out of
the pit, wherein is no water,"[23] where the words, "Thy prisoners, and the pit
wherein is no water," evidently point not to the delightfulness of Paradise but
to the obscurity of a prison. Therefore in the promise of Christ the word
Paradise could mean nothing else than the beatitude of the soul, which consists
in the vision of God, and this is truly a paradise of delights, not a corporeal
and a local paradise, but a spiritual and a heavenly one. For which reason, to
the request of the thief, "Remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom,"
our Lord did not reply, "This day thou shalt be with Me" in My kingdom, but,
"Thou shalt be with Me in Paradise," because on that day Christ entered not into
His kingdom, and did not enter it till the day of His Resurrection, when His
Body became immortal, impassible, glorious, and was no longer liable to any
servitude or subjection. And He will not have the good thief for His companion
in this kingdom until the resurrection of all men at the last day. Nevertheless,
with great truth and propriety He said to him: "This day thou shalt be with Me
in Paradise," since on this very day He would communicate both to the soul of
the good thief and to the souls of the saints in Limbus that glory of the vision
of God which He had received in His conception; for this is true glory and
essential felicity; this is the crowning joy of the celestial Paradise. The
choice of words used by Christ on this occasion is also greatly to be admired.
He did not say; This day we shall be in Paradise, but, "This day thou shalt be
with Me in Paradise;" as though He wished to explain Himself more fully, thus:
This day thou art with Me on the Cross, but thou art not with Me in the Paradise
in which I am in respect to the superior part of My Soul. But in a little while,
even to- day, thou shalt be with Me, not only liberated from the arms of the
cross, but embraced in the bosom of Paradise.

CHAPTER V. The first fruit to
be drawn from the consideration of the second Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

We can gather some chosen fruits from the second word
spoken from the Cross. The first fruit is the consideration of the immense mercy
and liberality of Christ, and how good and useful a thing it is to serve Him.
The many pains He was suffering might have been urged as an excuse by our Lord
for not hearing the petition of the thief, but in His charity He preferred to
forget His own grievous pains rather than not listen to the prayer of a poor
penitent sinner. This same Lord answered not a word to the curses and reproaches
of the priests and soldiers, but at the cry of a confessing sinner His charity
forbade Him to be any longer silent. When He is reviled He opens not His mouth,
because He is patient: when a sinner confesses his guilt, He speaks, because He
is benign. But what shall we say of His liberality? Those who serve temporal
masters frequently gain but a slight recompense for many labours. Even at this
very day we see not a few who have spent the best years of their life in the
service of princes, and retire in their old age on a small pittance. But Christ
is a truly liberal Prince, a truly magnanimous Master. He receives no service at
the hands of the good thief, except a few kind words and a hearty desire to
assist Him, and behold with how great a reward He repays him! On this very day
all the sins which he had committed during his life are forgiven: he is also
ranked with the princes of his people, to wit, with the patriarchs and the
prophets: and finally Christ raises him to the companionship of His table, of
His dignity, of His glory, and of all His goods. "This day," He says, "thou
shalt be with Me in Paradise." And what God says, He does. Nor does He defer
this reward to some distant day, but on this very day He pours into his bosom "a
good measure, and pressed down, and shaken together, and running
over."

The thief is not the only one who has experienced the
liberality of Christ. The Apostles, who left either a ship, or a counting-house,
or a home to serve Christ, were made by Him "princes over all the earth,"[1] and
the devils, serpents, and all kinds of diseases were made subject to them. If
any man has given food or clothing to the poor as an alms in the name of Christ,
he shall hear these consoling words at the Day of Judgment--"I was hungry, and
you gave Me to eat; naked and you covered Me:"[2] receive therefore, and possess
My eternal kingdom. In fine, to pass over many other promises of rewards, could
any man believe the almost incredible liberality of Christ, if it had not been
God Himself Who promised that "every one that hath left house, or brethren, or
sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for My name's
sake, shall receive a hundred-fold, and shall possess life everlasting."[3] St.
Jerome and other holy Doctors interpret the above-quoted text in this way. If
any man, for the love of Christ, abandons any thing in this present life, he
shall receive a two- fold reward, together with a life of incomparably more
value than the trifle which he has left for Christ. In the first place, he shall
receive a spiritual joy or a spiritual gift in this life, a hundred times more
precious than the temporal thing he forsook for Christ's sake; and a truly
spiritual man would choose rather to keep this gift than exchange it for a
hundred houses or fields, or other like things. Secondly, as though Almighty God
considered this reward of little or no value, the happy merchant who barters
earthly things for heavenly ones shall receive in the next world life eternal,
in which one word is contained an ocean of everything good.

Such, then, is the manner in which Christ, the great King,
shows His liberality to those who give themselves to His service without
reserve. And are not those men foolish who, forsaking the standard of such a
Monarch, desire to become the slaves of mammon, of gluttony, and of luxury? But
those who know not what things Christ considers to be real riches, may say that
these promises are mere words, since we often find His cherished friends to be
poor, squalid, abject, and sorrowful, and on the other hand, we never behold
this hundred-fold reward which is proclaimed to be so truly magnificent. So it
is: the carnal man will never see the hundred-fold which Christ has promised,
because he has not eyes wherewith he can see it; nor will he ever participate in
that solid joy which a pure conscience and a true love of God begets. I will
adduce, however, one example to show that even a carnal man can appreciate
spiritual delights and spiritual riches. We read in a book of examples about the
illustrious men of the Cistercian Order, that a certain noble and rich man,
named Arnulph, left the whole of his fortune and became a Cistercian monk, under
the authority of St. Bernard. God tried the virtue of this man by the bitter
pains of many kinds of diseases, particularly towards the end of his life; and
on one occasion, when he was suffering more acutely than usual, he cried out
with a loud voice: "Everything Thou hast said, O Lord Jesus, is true." Those who
were present asking him what was the reason of this exclamation, he replied:
"The Lord, in His Gospel, says that those who forsake their riches and all
things else for His sake, shall receive a hundred-fold in this life, and
afterwards life eternal. I at length understand the force and import of this
promise. and I acknowledge that I am now receiving the hundred-fold for
everything which I left. Indeed, the immense bitterness of this grief is so
pleasing to me through the hope of the Divine mercy which will be extended to me
on account of my sufferings, that I would not consent to be liberated from my
pains for a hundred times the value of the worldly substance I have left. For,
indeed, spiritual joy which is centred in the hope of what is to come surpasses
a hundred thousand times all worldly joy, which springs from the present." The
reader, by pondering these words, may judge how great an esteem is to be set on
the heavenly-derived virtue of the certain hope of eternal
felicity.

ENDNOTES

1. Psalm xliv. 17.2. St. Matt.
xxv. 35, 36.3. St. Matt. xix. 29.

CHAPTER VI: The second fruit
to be drawn from the consideration of the second Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

A knowledge of the power of Divine grace, and of the
weakness of the human will, is the second fruit to be gathered from the
consideration of the second word, and this knowledge is equivalent to saying
that our best policy is to place all our confidence in the grace of God, and
distrust entirely our own strength. If any man wishes to know the power of the
grace of God, let him cast his eyes on the good thief. He was a notorious
sinner, who had persevered in his wicked course of life to the moment when he
was fastened to the cross--that is, almost to the last moment of his life; and
at this critical period, when his eternal salvation was at stake, there was no
one present to counsel or assist him. For although he was in close proximity to
his Saviour, nevertheless he only heard the chief priests and the Pharisees
declaring that He was a seducer, and an ambitious man who was aiming at
sovereign power. He likewise heard his companion in wickedness taunting him in
similar terms. There was no one to say one good word for Christ, and even Christ
Himself did not rebut these blasphemies and maledictions. Nevertheless, by the
assistance of God's grace, when the gates of heaven seemed shut against him, the
jaws of hell open to receive, and the sinner himself as far removed as possible
from life eternal, he was suddenly illuminated from on high, his thoughts were
directed into the proper channel, and he confessed Christ to be innocent and the
King of the world to come, and, like a minister of God, rebuked his
fellow-thief, persuaded him to repent, and commended himself humbly and devoutly
to Christ. In a word, his dispositions were, so perfect as to make the pains of
his crucifixion compensate for what sufferings were in store for him in
Purgatory, so that immediately after death he entered into the joy of his Lord.
From which circumstance it is evident that no one should despair of salvation,
since the thief who entered the Lord's vineyard almost at the twelfth hour
received his reward with those who had come at the first hour. On the other
hand, in order to let us see the extent of human weakness, the bad thief is not
converted either by the immense charity of Christ, Who so lovingly prayed for
His executioners, or by the force of his own sufferings, or by the admonition
and example of his companion, or by the unusual darkness, the splitting of
rocks, or the conduct of those who, after the death of Christ, returned to the
city striking their breasts. And all these things took place after the
conversion of the good thief, to show us that whilst one could be converted
without these adjuncts, the other, with all these helps, could not, or rather
would not be converted.

But you may ask, why has God given the grace of conversion
to the one and denied it to the other? I answer that both had sufficient grace
given them for their conversion, and if one perished, he perished through his
own fault, and if the other was converted, he was converted by the grace of God,
though not without the cooperation of his own free will. Still it may be urged,
why did not God give to both of them that efficacious grace which would overcome
the hardest heart? The reason why He has not done so is one of those secrets
which we ought to admire but not pry into, since we ought to rest satisfied with
the thought that there cannot be injustice with God, as the Apostle says, for,
as St. Augustine expresses it, the judgments of God may be secret, but cannot be
unjust. To learn from this example not to postpone our conversion to the
approach of death, is a lesson that more nearly concerns us. For if one thief
cooperated with the grace of God in that last moment, the other rejected it, and
met his final doom. And every reader of history, or observer of what takes place
around him, cannot but know that the rule is for men to end a wicked life by a
miserable death, whilst it is the exception for the sinner to die happily; and,
on the other hand, it seldom happens that those who live well and holily come to
a sad and miserable end, but many good and pious people enter, after their
death, into the possession of eternal joys. Those persons are too presumptuous
and fool-hardy who, in a matter of such import as eternal felicity or eternal
torment, dare to remain in a state of mortal sin even for a day, seeing that
they may be surprised by death at any moment, and after death there is no place
for repentance, and out of hell there is no redemption.

CHAPTER VII: The third fruit
to be drawn from the consideration of the second Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

A third fruit can be drawn from the second word of our Lord
by adverting to the fact that there were three persons crucified at the same
time, one of whom, namely, Christ, was innocent; another, namely, the good
thief, was a penitent; and the third, namely, the bad thief, remained obstinate
in his sin: or to express the same idea in different words, of the three who
were crucified at the same time, Christ was always and transcendently holy, one
of the thieves was always and notably wicked, and the other thief was formerly a
sinner but now a saint. From which circumstance we are to infer that every man
in this world has his cross and that those who seek to live without having a
cross to carry, aim at something which is impossible, whilst we should hold
those persons to be wise who receive their cross from the hand of the Lord, and
bear it even to death, not only patiently but cheerfully. And that each pious
soul has a cross to carry can be deduced from these words of our Lord: "If any
man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow
Me,"[1] and again, "Whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me cannot
be My disciple,"[2] which is precisely the doctrine of the Apostle: "All that
will live godly," he says, "in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution."[3] The
Greek and Latin Fathers give their entire adhesion to this teaching, and that I
may not be prolix I will give but two quotations. St. Augustine in his
commentary on the Psalms writes; "This short life is a tribulation: if it is not
a tribulation it is not a journey: but if it is a journey you either do not love
the country towards which you are journeying, or without doubt you would be in
tribulation." And in another place; "If you say you have not yet suffered
anything, then you have not begun to be a Christian." St. John Chrysostom, in
one of his homilies to the people of Antioch, says, "Tribulation is a chain
which cannot be unlinked from the life of a Christian." And again; "You cannot
say that that man is holy who has not made trial of tribulation." Indeed this
doctrine can be demonstrated by reason. Things of a contrary nature cannot be
brought into each other's presence without a mutual opposition; thus fire and
water, as long as they are kept apart, will remain quiet; but bring them
together, and the water will begin to hiss, to form itself into globules, and
pass off into steam until either the water is consumed, or the fire is
extinguished. "Good is set against evil," says Ecclesiasticus, "and life against
death: so also is the sinner against the just man." Just men are compared to
fire. Their light is shining, their zeal is burning, they are ever ascending
from virtue to virtue, ever working, and whatever they undertake they
efficaciously accomplish. On the other hand sinners are compared to water. They
are cold, ever moving on the earth, and forming mire on all sides. Is it
therefore strange that wicked men should persecute just souls? But because, even
to the end of the world, wheat and cockle will grow in the same field, chaff and
corn be collected in the same barn, good and bad fish found in the same net,
that is, upright and wicked men in the same world, and even in the same Church;
it therefore necessarily follows that the good and the holy shall be persecuted
by the bad and the impious.

The wicked also have their crosses in this world. For
although they are not persecuted by the good, nevertheless they will be
tormented by other sinners, by their own vices, and by their evil consciences.
The most wise Solomon, who certainly would have been happy in this world, had
happiness been possible here, acknowledged that he had a cross to carry when he
said: "I saw in all things vanity and vexation of mind, and therefore I was
weary of my life, when I saw that all things under the sun are evil, and all
vanity and vexation of spirit."[4] And the writer of the Book of Ecclesiasticus,
who was likewise a most prudent man, pronounces this general sentence: "Great
labour is created for all men, and a heavy yoke is upon the children of
Adam."[5] St. Augustine in his commentary on the Psalms says, that "the greatest
of all tribulations is a guilty conscience." St. John Chrysostom in his homily
on Lazarus shows at length how the wicked must have their crosses. If they are
poor, their poverty is their cross; if they are not poor, cupidity is their
cross, which is a heavier one than poverty; if they are stretched on a bed of
sickness, the bed is their cross. St. Cyprian tells us that every man from the
moment of his nativity is destined to carry a cross and suffer tribulation,
which is foreshadowed by the tears shed by every infant. "Each one of us," he
writes, "at his birth, and at his very entrance into the world, sheds tears. And
although we are then unconscious and ignorant of everything, we nevertheless
know, even at our nativity, what it is to cry: by a natural foresight we lament
the anxieties and labours of the life we are commencing, and the untutored soul
by its moaning and weeping proclaims the bustling commotions of the world which
it is entering."

Since such is the case there can be no doubt but that a
cross is in store for the good as well as for the wicked, and it only remains
for me to prove that the cross of a saint lasts for a short time, is light and
fruitful, whilst that of a sinner is eternal, heavy and sterile. In the first
place there can be no question as to the fact that a saint suffers for a brief
period only, since he can endure nothing when this life has passed. "From
henceforth now, saith the Spirit," to the departing just souls, "that they may
rest from their labours;"[6] "And God shall wipe away all tears from their
eyes."[7] The sacred Scriptures say most positively, that our present life is
short, although to us it may appear long. "The days of man are short,"[8] and
"Man born of a woman, living for a short time,"[9] and " What is your life? It
is a vapour which appeareth for a little while, and afterwards shall vanish
away."[10] The Apostle, however, who carried a most heavy cross from his youth
even to his old age, writes in these terms in his Epistle to the Corinthians,
"For that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh
for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory;"[11] in which
passage he speaks of his sufferings as of no account, and compares them to an
indivisible moment, although they had extended over a period of more than thirty
years. And his sufferings consisted in being hungry, thirsty, naked, struck, in
being thrice beaten with rods by the Romans, five times scourged by the Jews,
once stoned, and thrice shipwrecked; in undergoing many journeys, in being often
imprisoned, in receiving stripes beyond measure, in being frequently reduced to
the last extremity.[12] What tribulations then would he call heavy if he
considers these light, as they really are. And what will you, kind reader, say,
if I insist that the cross of the just is not only light, but even sweet and
agreeable on account of the superabundant consolations of the Holy Spirit?
Christ says of His yoke, which may be called a cross: "My yoke is sweet and My
burden light:"[13] and elsewhere He says, "You shall lament and weep, but the
world shall rejoice, and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be
turned into joy.[14] And the Apostle writes: "I am filled with comfort; I
exceedingly abound with joy in all our tribulation."[15] In a word, we cannot
deny but that the cross of the just is not only light and temporary, but
fruitful, useful, and the bearer of every good gift, when we hear our Lord
saying: "Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven,"[16] St. Paul, exclaiming that, "The sufferings of
this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be
revealed in us,"[17] and St. Peter exhorting us to rejoice if "we partake of the
suffering of Christ, that when His glory shall be revealed we may also be glad
with exceeding joy."[18]

On the other hand there is no need of a demonstration to
show that the cross of the wicked is eternal in its duration, most heavy and
unmeritorious. Of a surety the death of the wicked thief was not a descent from
the cross, as the death of the good thief was, for even now that wretched man is
dwelling in hell, and will dwell there for ever, since "the worm" of the wicked,
"shall not die, and the fire of hell shall not be quenched."[19] And the cross
of the rich glutton, that is the cross of those who store up riches, which are
most aptly compared by our Lord to thorns that cannot be handled or kept with
impunity, does not cease with this life as the cross of poor Lazarus did, but it
accompanies him to hell, where it unceasingly burns and torments him, and forces
him to cry out for a drop of water to cool his burning tongue "for I am
tormented in this flame."[20] Therefore the cross of the wicked is eternal in
its duration, and the lamentations of those of whom we read in the book of
Wisdom, testify that it is heavy and rough. "We wearied ourselves in the way of
iniquity and destruction, and have walked through hard ways."[21] What! are not
ambition, avarice, luxury, difficult paths to tread? Are not the accompaniments
of these vices, anger, quarrelling, envy, difficult paths to tread? Are not the
sins which spring from these accompaniments, treachery, brawls, affronts, wounds
and murder, difficult paths to tread? They are certainly such and not
unfrequently force men to commit suicide in despair, and thereby seeking to
avoid one cross, prepare for themselves a much heavier one.

And what advantage or fruit do the wicked derive from their
cross? It can no more bring them an advantage than thorns can produce grapes, or
thistles figs. The yoke of our Lord brings peace, according to His own words: "
Take up My yoke upon you, and you shall find rest to your souls." 22 Can the
yoke of the devil, which is diametrically opposed to that of Christ, bring
anything but care and anxiety ? And this is of still greater importance, that
whereas the Cross of Christ is the step to eternal felicity, "for it behoveth
Christ to suffer and so to enter into His glory,"[23] the cross of the devil is
the step to eternal torments, according to the sentence pronounced on the
wicked: "Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared
for the devil and his angels."[24] If there be any wise men who are crucified in
Christ, they will not seek to come down from the cross, as the impenitent thief
foolishly sought, but will rather remain close to His side with the good thief,
and will ask pardon of God and not a deliverance from the cross, and thus
suffering alone with Him they will likewise reign with Him, according to the
words of the Apostle: "Yet so if we suffer with Him, that we may be also
glorified with Him."[25] If, however, there be any wise amongst those who are
weighed down by the devil's cross, they will take care to shake it off at once,
and if they have any sense will exchange the five yoke of oxen for the single
yoke of Christ. By the five yoke of oxen are meant the labours and weariness of
sinners who are the slaves of their five senses; and when a man labours in doing
penance instead of sinning, he barters the five yoke of oxen, for the single
yoke of Christ. Happy is the soul which knows how to crucify the flesh with its
vices and concupiscences, and distributes the alms which might be spent in
gratifying its passions, and spends in prayer and spiritual reading, in
soliciting the grace of God and the patronage of the Heavenly Court, the hours
which might be lost in banqueting and in satisfying the restless ambition of
becoming the friends of the powerful. In this manner the cross of the bad thief,
which is heavy and barren, may be profitably exchanged for the Cross of Christ,
which is light and fruitful.

We read in St. Austin how a distinguished soldier argued
with one of his comrades about taking up the cross. "Tell me, I pray, to what
goal will all the labours we undertake bring us? What object do we present to
ourselves? For whose sake do we serve as soldiers? Our greatest ambition is to
become the friends of the Emperor; and is not the road that leads us to his
honour full of dangers, and when we have gained our point are we not then placed
in the most perilous position of all? And through how many years shall we have
to labour to secure this honour. But if I desire to become the friend of God, I
can become His friend at this moment." Thus he argued, that since to secure the
friendship of the Emperor he must undertake many long and fruitless toils, he
would be acting more wisely if he undertook fewer and lighter and more useful
labours to secure the friendship of God. Both soldiers made their resolve on the
spot, both left the army in order to serve their Creator in earnest, and what
increased their joy on taking this step was the fact that the two ladies whom
they were on the point of marrying, spontaneously offered their virginity to
God.

The last of the three words, which have special reference
to charity for one's neighbour, is, "Behold thy Mother: Behold thy son."[1] But
before we explain the meaning of this word we must dwell a little on the
preceding passage of St. John's Gospel. "Now there stood by the Cross of Jesus
His Mother, and His Mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Cleophas, and Mary
Magdalene. When Jesus, therefore, saw His Mother, and the disciple standing by,
whom He loved, He saith unto His Mother: Woman, behold thy son! Then saith He to
the disciple: Behold thy Mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto
his own." Two out of the three Marys that stood near the Cross are known,
namely, Mary, the Mother of our Lord, and Mary Magdalene. About Mary, the wife
of Cleophas, there is some doubt; some suppose her to have been the daughter of
St. Anne, who had three daughters, to wit, Mary, the Mother of Christ, Mary, the
wife of Cleophas, and Mary Salome. But this opinion is almost exploded. For, in
the first place, we cannot suppose three sisters to be called by the same name.
Moreover, we know that many pious and erudite men maintain that our Blessed Lady
was St. Anne's only child; and there is no other Mary Salome mentioned in the
Gospels. For where St. Mark[2] says that "Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the mother
of James, and Salome, had brought sweet spices," the word Salome is not in the
genitive case, as if he wished to say Mary, the mother of Salome, as just before
he said Mary, the mother of James, but it is of the nominative case and of the
feminine gender, as is clear from the Greek version, where the word is written
[Salome]. Moreover, this Mary Salome was the wife of Zebedee,[3] and the mother
of the Apostles, St. James and St. John, as we learn from the two Evangelists,
St. Matthew and St. Mark,[4] just as Mary, the mother of James was the wife of
Cleophas, and the mother of St. James the Less and St. Jude. Wherefore the true
interpretation is this, that Mary, the wife of Cleophas, was called the sister
of the Blessed Virgin because Cleophas was the brother of St. Joseph, the Spouse
of the Blessed Virgin, and the wives of two brothers have a right to call
themselves and be called sisters For the same reason St. James the Less is
called the brother of our Lord, although he was only His cousin, since he was
the son of Cleophas, who, we have said, was the brother of St. Joseph. Eusebius
gives us this account in his ecclesiastical history, and he quotes, as a
trustworthy authority, Hegesippus, a contemporary of the Apostles. We have also
St. Jerome's authority for the same interpretation, as we may gather from his
work against Helvidius.

There is also an apparent disagreement in the Gospel
narratives, which it would be well briefly to dwell upon. St. John says that
these three women stood near the Cross of our Lord, whereas both St. Mark[5] and
St. Luke[6] say they were afar off. St. Austin in his third book on the Harmony
of the Gospels, makes the three texts harmonize in this way. These holy women
may be said to have been both a long way from the Cross, and near the Cross.
They were a long way from the Cross in reference to the soldiers and
executioners, who were in such close proximity to the Cross as to touch it, but
they were sufficiently near the Cross to hear the words of our Lord, which the
crowd of spectators who were the furthest of all removed, could not hear. We may
also explain the texts thus. During the actual nailing of our Lord to the Cross,
the concourse of soldiers and people kept the holy women at a distance, but as
soon as the Cross was fixed in the ground many of the Jews returned to the city,
and then the three women and St. John drew nearer. This explanation does away
with the difficulty as to the reason why the Blessed Virgin and St. John applied
to themselves the words, "Behold thy Son; Behold thy Mother," when so many
others were present, and Christ addressed neither His Mother nor His disciple by
name. The real answer to this objection is that the three women and St. John
were standing so near the Cross as to enable our Lord to designate by His looks
the persons whom He was addressing. Besides, the words were evidently spoken to
His personal friends, and not to strangers. And amongst His personal friends who
were on the spot there was no other man to whom he could say, "Behold thy
Mother," except St. John, and there was no other woman who would be rendered
childless by His death except His Virgin Mother. Wherefore He said to His
Mother: "Behold thy Son," and to His disciple, " Behold thy Mother." Now this is
the literal meaning of these words: I indeed am on the point of passing from
this world to the bosom of My Heavenly Father, and since I am fully aware that
you My Mother, have neither parents, nor a husband, nor brothers, nor sisters,
in order not to leave you utterly destitute of human succour, I commend you to
the care of My most beloved disciple John: he will act towards you as a son, and
you will act towards him as a Mother. And this counsel or command of Christ,
which showed Him to be so mindful of others, was alike welcome to both parties,
and both we may believe to have bowed their heads in token of their
acquiescence, for St. John says of himself; "And from that hour that disciple
took her unto his own," that is, St. John immediately obeyed our Lord, and
reckoned the Blessed Virgin, together with his now aged parents Zebedee and
Salome amongst the persons for whom it was his duty to care and
provide.

There still remains another question which may be asked.
St. John was one of those who had said;[7] "Behold we have forsaken all, and
followed Thee; what shall we have therefore?" And among the things which they
had abandoned, our Lord enumerates father and mother, brothers and sisters,
house and lands; and St. Matthew, when speaking of St. John and his brother St.
James, said: "And they immediately left their nets and their father and followed
Him."[8] Whence comes it then that he who had left one mother for the sake of
Christ, should be told by our Lord to look upon the Blessed Virgin in the light
of a Mother? We have not far to go for an answer. When the Apostles followed
Christ they left their father and mother, in so far as they might be an
impediment to their evangelical life, and inasmuch, as any worldly advantage and
carnal pleasure might be derived from their presence. But they did not forego
that solicitude which a man is justly bound to show for his parents or his
children, if they want either his direction or his assistance. Whence some
spiritual writers affirm that that son cannot enter a religious order, whose
father is either so stricken with age, or oppressed with poverty as to be unable
to live without his aid. And as St. John left his father and mother when they
stood not in need of him, so when Christ ordered him to take care of and provide
for His Virgin Mother, she was destitute of all human succour. God indeed,
without any assistance from man, might have provided His Mother with all things
necessary by the ministry of angels, just as they ministered to Christ Himself
in the desert: but He wished St. John to do this in order that whilst the
Apostle took care of the Virgin, she might honour and help the Apostle. For God
sent Elias to the assistance of a poor widow, not that He could not have
supported her by means of a raven, as He had done before, but in order, as St.
Austin observes, that the prophet might bless her. Wherefore it pleased our Lord
to entrust His Mother to the care of St. John for the twofold purpose of
bestowing a blessing upon him, and to prove that he above all the rest was His
beloved disciple. For truly in this transfer of His Mother was fulfilled that
text: " Every one that hath forsaken father or mother shall receive a
hundred-fold, and shall inherit life everlasting."[9] For certainly he received
a hundred-fold, who leaving his mother, the wife of a fisherman, received as a
mother, the Mother of the Creator, the Queen of the world, who was full of
grace, blessed among women, and shortly to be raised above all the choirs of
angels in the heavenly kingdom.

CHAPTER IX. The first fruit to
be drawn from the consideration of the third Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

If we examine attentively all the circumstances under which
this third word was spoken, we may gather many fruits from its consideration
First of all, we have brought before us the intense desire which Christ felt of
suffering for our salvation in order that our redemption might be copious and
plentiful For in order not to increase the pain and sorrow they feel, some men
take measures to prevent their relatives being present at their death,
particularly if their death is to be a violent one, accompanied by disgrace and
infamy But Christ was not satiated with His own most bitter Passion, so full of
grief and shame, but wished also that His Mother and the disciple whom He loved,
should be present, and should even stand near the Cross in order that the sight
of the sufferings of those most dear to Him might augment His own grief. Four
streams of Blood were pouring from the mangled Body of Christ on the Cross, and
He wished that four streams of tears should flow from the eyes of His Mother, of
His disciple, of Mary His Mother's sister, and of Magdalene, the most cherished
of the holy women, in order that the cause of His sufferings might be due less
to the shedding of His own Blood, than to the copious flood of tears which the
sight of His agony wrung from the hearts of those who were standing near. I
imagine that I hear Christ saying to me "The sorrows of death surround Me,"[1]
for the sword of Simeon rends and mangles My Heart, as cruelly as it passes
through the soul of My most innocent Mother It is thus that a bitter death
should separate not only the soul from the body, but a mother from a son, and
such a Mother from such a Son! For this reason He said, "Woman, behold thy son,"
for His love for Mary would not permit Him at such a moment to address her by
the endearing name of Mother. God has so loved the world as to give His
Only-Begotten Son for its redemption, and the Only-Begotten Son has so loved the
Father as to shed profusely His very Blood for His honour, and not satisfied
with the pangs of His Passion, has endured the agonies of compassion, so that
there might be a plentiful redemption for our sins. And that we may not perish
but may enjoy life everlasting, the Father and the Son exhort us to the
imitation of Their charity by portraying it in its most exquisite beauty; and
yet the heart of man still resists this so great charity, and consequently
deserves rather to feel the wrath of God, than to taste the sweetness of His
mercy, and fall into the arms of Divine love We should be indeed ungrateful, and
should deserve everlasting torments, if we would not for His love endure the
little purging which is necessary for our salvation, when we behold our Redeemer
loving us to that extent, as to suffer for our sakes more than was necessary, to
endure countless torments, and to shed every drop of His Blood, when one single
drop would have been amply sufficient for our redemption The only reason that
can be assigned for our sloth and folly is, that we neither meditate on the
Passion of Christ, nor consider His immense love for us with that earnestness
and attention we ought to do We content ourselves with reading the Passion
hastily, or hearing it read, instead of securing fitting opportunities to
penetrate ourselves with the thought of it. On that account the holy Prophet
admonishes us: "Attend and see if there be sorrow like unto my sorrow."[2] And
the Apostle says: "Consider Him that endureth such contradiction of sinners
against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds."[3] But the time
will come when our ingratitude towards God and listlessness in the affair of our
own salvation will be a subject of sincere sorrow to us. For there are many who
at the Last Day "will groan for anguish of spirit," and will say: "Therefore we
have erred from the way of truth, and the light of justice hath not shined upon
us."[4] And they will not feel this fruitless sorrow for the first time in hell,
but before the Day of Judgment, when their mortal eyes shall be shut in death,
and the eyes of their soul shall be opened, will they behold the truth of those
things to which during their life they were willfully blind.

ENDNOTES

1. Psalm xvii.2. Lament. i. 10.3. Heb. xii. 3.4. Wisdom v.
6.

CHAPTER X: The second fruit to
be drawn from the consideration of the third Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

We may draw another fruit from the consideration of the
third word spoken by Christ on the Cross from this circumstance, that there were
three women who stood near the Cross of our Lord Mary Magdalene is the
representative of the penitent sinner, or of one who is making a first attempt
to advance in the way of perfection. Mary the wife of Cleophas is the
representative of those who have already made some advance towards perfection;
and Mary the Virgin Mother of Christ is the representative of those who are
perfect We may couple St. John with our Lady, who was shortly to be, if he were
not already, confirmed in grace These were the only persons who were found near
the Cross, for abandoned sinners who never think of penance are far removed from
the ladder of salvation, the Cross Moreover, it was not without a purpose that
these chosen souls were near the Cross, since even they were in need of the
assistance of Him Who was nailed thereon. Penitents, or beginners in virtue, in
order to carry on the war against their vices and concupiscences require help
from Christ, their Leader, and this help to fight with the old serpent they
receive in the encouragement which His example gives them, for He would not
descend from the Cross until He had gained a complete victory over the devil,
which is what we are taught by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Colossians: "
Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was
contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His Cross; and having
spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing
over them in it."[1] Mary the wife of Cleophas, and the mother of children who
were called the brothers of our Lord, is the representative of those who have
already made some progress on the path of perfection These also want assistance
from the Cross, lest the cares and anxieties of this world, with which they are
necessarily mixed up, choke in them the good seed, and a night of labour will
result in the capture of nothing Therefore souls in this stage of perfection
must still work and cast many a glance on Christ nailed to His Cross, Who was
not satisfied by the great and manifold good deeds He performed during His life,
but wished by means of His death to advance to the most heroic degree of virtue,
for until the enemy of mankind had been thoroughly vanquished and put to flight,
He would not come down from His Cross. To grow weary in the pursuit of virtue,
and to cease from performing acts of virtue, are the greatest impediments to our
spiritual advancement, for as St. Bernard truly notes in his Epistle to Garinus,
"not to advance in virtue is to go back;" and in this same epistle he refers to
the ladder of Jacob, whereon all the angels were either ascending or descending,
but none were standing still. Moreover, even in the perfect who live a life of
celibacy and are virgins, as were our Blessed Lady and St. John, who for this
reason was the chosen Apostle of Christ, even these, I say, greatly need the
assistance of Him that was crucified, since their very virtue exposes them to
the danger of falling through spiritual pride, unless they are well grounded in
humility During the course of His public ministry, Christ gave us many lessons
in humility, as when He said "Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of
Heart."[2] And again "Sit ye down in the lowest place;"[3] and "Every one that
exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be
exalted."[4] Still all His exhortations on the necessity of this virtue are not
so persuasive as the example He set us on the Cross For what greater example of
humility can we conceive than that the Omnipotent should allow Himself to be
bound with ropes and nailed to a Cross ? And that He "in Whom are hid all the
treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God"[5] should permit Herod and his
army to treat Him as a fool and clothe Him with a white robe, and that "He Who
sitteth on the cherubim"[6] should suffer Himself to be crucified between two
thieves? Well might we say after this, that the man who should kneel before a
crucifix, and should look into the interior of his own soul, and should come to
the conclusion that he was not deficient in the virtue of humility, would be
incapable of learning any lesson.

CHAPTER XI: The third fruit to
be drawn from the consideration of the third Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

We learn in the third place from the words which Christ
addressed to His Mother and to His disciple from the pulpit of the Cross, what
are the relative duties of parents towards their children, and of children
towards their parents We will treat in the first place of the duties which
parents owe their children. Christian parents should love their children, but in
such a manner that the love of their children should not interfere with their
love of God. This is the doctrine that our Lord lays down in the Gospel "He that
loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me."[1] It was in obedience
to this law that our Lady stood near the Cross to her intense agony, yet with
great constancy of soul. Her grief was a proof of the great love she bore her
Son, Who was dying on the Cross beside her, and her constancy was a proof of her
subservience to the God Who was reigning in heaven. The sight of her innocent
Son, Whom she passionately loved, dying in the midst of such torments, was
enough to break her heart; but even had she been able, she would not have
hindered the crucifixion, since she knew that all these sufferings were being
inflicted on her Son according to "the determinate council and fore-knowledge of
God."[2] Love is the measure of grief, and because this Virgin Mother loved
much, therefore was she afflicted beyond measure at beholding her Son so cruelly
tortured And how could this Virgin Mother help loving her Son, when she knew
that He excelled the rest of mankind in every kind of excellence, and when He
was related to her by a closer tie than other children are related to their
parents? There is a twofold reason why parents love their offspring; one,
because they have begotten them, and the other, because the good qualities of
their children redound on themselves There are some parents, however, who feel
but a slight attachment to their children, and others who positively hate them
if they are deformed or wicked, or have the misfortune of being illegitimate Now
for the aforesaid twofold reason, the Virgin Mother of God loved her Son more
than any other mother could love her child In the first place, no woman has ever
given birth to a child without the cooperation of her husband, but the Blessed
Virgin brought forth her Son without any contact with man; as a Virgin she
conceived Him, and as a Virgin she brought Him forth, and as Christ our Lord in
the Divine generation has a Father without a Mother, so in the human generation
He has a Mother without a Father. When we say that Christ our Lord was conceived
of the Holy Ghost, we do not mean that the Holy Spirit is the Father of Christ,
but that He formed and molded the Body of Christ, not out of His own substance,
but from the pure flesh of the Virgin. Truly then has the Virgin alone begotten
Him, she alone can claim Him as her own Son, and therefore has she loved Him
with more than a mother's love In the second place, the Son of the Virgin not
only was and is beautiful beyond the children of men but surpasses in every way
all angels also, and as a natural consequence of her great love, the Blessed
Virgin mourned over the Passion and Death of her Son more than others, and St.
Bernard does not hesitate to affirm in one of his sermons, that the sorrow our
Lady felt at the crucifixion was a martyrdom of the heart, according to the
prophecy of Simeon "A sword shall pierce through thy own soul."[3] And since the
martyrdom of the heart is more bitter than the martyrdom of the body, St. Anselm
in his work on the "Excellence of the Virgin," says that the grief of the Virgin
was more bitter than any bodily suffering Our Lord, in His Agony in the Garden
of Gethsemani, suffered a martyrdom of the heart by passing in review all the
sufferings and torments He was to endure on the morrow, and by opening on to His
soul the floodgates of grief and fear He began to be so afflicted, that a Sweat
of Blood diffused from His Body, an occurrence which we are not informed ever
resulted from his corporal sufferings Therefore, beyond a doubt, our Blessed
Lady carried a most heavy cross, and endured most poignant grief, from the sword
of sorrow which pierced her soul, but she stood near the Cross the very model of
patience, and beheld all His sufferings without manifesting a sign of
impatience, because she sought the honour and glory of God rather than the
gratification of her maternal love She did not fall to the ground half dead with
sorrow, as some imagine; nor did she tear her hair, nor sob and cry aloud, but
she bravely bore the affliction which it was the will of God she should bear She
loved her Son vehemently, but she loved the honour of God the Father and the
salvation of mankind more, just as her Divine Son preferred these two objects to
the preservation of His life Moreover, her unwavering faith in the resurrection
of her Son increased her confidence of soul to such an extent that she stood in
no need of consolation from any man She was aware that the Death of her Son
would be like a short sleep, according to what the Royal Psalmist said "I have
slept and have taken my rest, and I have risen up, because the Lord hath
protected me."[4]

All the faithful should imitate this example of Christ by
deferring the love of their children to the love of God, Who is the Father of
all, and loves all with a greater and more beneficial love than we can bear
ourselves. In the first place, Christian parents should love their children with
a manly and prudent love, not encouraging them if they do wrong, but educating
them in the fear of God, and correcting them, even chastising and punishing them
if they either offend God or neglect their studies For this is the will of God,
as it is revealed to us in Holy Writ, in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, "Hast thou
children? instruct them, and bow down their neck from their childhood."[5] And
we read of Tobias that "from his infancy he taught his son to fear God and to
abstain from all sin."[6] The Apostle warns parents not to provoke their
children to anger, lest they be discouraged, but to bring them up in the nurture
and admonition of the Lord, that is, to treat them not as slaves, but as
children.[7] Parents who are too severe with their children, and who rebuke and
punish them even for a small fault, treat them as slaves, and such treatment
will discourage them and make them hate the paternal roof; and on the contrary,
those parents who are too indulgent will rear up immoral children, who will
become victims of hell- fire instead of possessing an immortal crown in
heaven.

The right method for parents to adopt in the education of
their children is to teach them to obey their superiors, and when they are
disobedient to correct them, but in such a manner as to make it evident that the
correction proceeds from a spirit of love and not of hatred. Moreover, if God
calls a child to the priesthood or to the religious life, no impediment should
be offered to his vocation, for parents should not oppose the will of God, but
should say with holy Job "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed
be the name of the Lord."[8] Lastly, if parents lose their children by an
untimely death, as our Blessed Lady lost her Divine Son, they should trust in
the good judgment of God, Who sometimes takes a soul to Himself if He perceives
that it may lose its innocence and so perish forever Truly if parents could
penetrate into the designs of God in the death of a child, they would rejoice
rather than weep: and if we had a lively faith in the Resurrection, as our Lady
had, we should no more repine because a person dies in his youth, than we should
weep because a person goes to sleep before night-time, since the death of the
faithful is a kind of sleep, as the Apostle tells us in his Epistle to the
Thessalonians: "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning
them who are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others who have no hope".[9]
The Apostle speaks rather of hope than of faith, because he does not refer to an
uncertain resurrection, but to a happy and glorious resurrection, similar to
that of Christ, which was a waking up to true life. For the man who has a firm
faith in the resurrection of the body, and trusts that his dead child will rise
again to glory, has no cause for sorrow, but great reason for rejoicing, because
his child's salvation is secured.

Our next point is to treat of the duty which children owe
their parents Our Lord in His Death gave us a most perfect example of filial
respect. Now, according to the words of the Apostle, the duty of children is "to
requite their parents."[10] Children requite their parents when they provide all
necessary conveniences for them in their old age, just as their parents procured
food and raiment for them in their infancy. When Christ was at the point of
death He entrusted His aged Mother, who had no one to care for her, to the
protection of St. John, and told her to look upon him in future as her son, and
commanded St. John to reverence her as his mother And thus our Lord perfectly
fulfilled the obligations which a son owes his mother. In the first place, in
the person of St. John He gave His Virgin Mother a son who was of the same age
as Himself, or perhaps a year younger, and therefore was in every way capable to
provide for the comfort of the Mother of our Lord. Secondly, He gave her for a
son the disciple whom He loved more than the rest, and who ardently returned Him
love for love, and consequently our Lord had the greatest confidence in the
diligence with which His disciple would support His Mother. Moreover He chose
the disciple whom He knew would outlive the other apostles, and would
consequently survive His parent Lastly, our Lord was mindful of His Mother at
the most calamitous moment of His life, when His whole Body was the prey of
sufferings, when His whole Soul was racked by the insolent taunts of His
enemies, and He had to drink the bitter chalice of approaching death, so that it
would seem He could think of nothing but His own sorrows Nevertheless, His love
for His Mother triumphed over all, and forgetting Himself, His only thought was
how to comfort and help her, nor was His hope in the promptitude and fidelity of
His disciple deceived, for "from that hour he took her unto his
own."[11]

Every child has a greater obligation than our Lord had to
provide for the temporal wants of his parents, since every man owes more to his
parents than Christ owed to His Mother. Each infant receives a greater favour
from his parents than he can ever hope to repay, for he has received from their
hands what it is impossible for him to bestow on them, namely, a being
"Remember," says Ecclesiasticus, "that thou hadst not been born but through
them."[12] Christ alone is an exception to this rule He indeed received from His
Mother His life as a man, but He bestowed on her three lives; her human life,
when with the cooperation of the Father and the Holy Ghost He created her; her
life of grace, when He forestalled her in the sweetness of His blessings by
creating her Immaculate, and her life of glory when she was assumed into the
kingdom of glory, and exalted above all the choirs of angels. Wherefore if
Christ, Who gave His Blessed Mother more than He had received from her in His
birth, wished to requite her, certainly the rest of mankind are still more
obliged to requite their parents Moreover, we only do our duty in honouring our
parents, and yet the goodness of God is such as to reward us for this In the Ten
Commandments the law is laid down- -"Honour thy father and thy mother, that thou
mayst be long-lived upon the land."[13] And the Holy Ghost says: "He that
honoureth his father shall have joy in his own children, and in the day of his
prayer he shall be heard."[14] And God does not only reward those who reverence
their parents, but punishes those who are disrespectful to them, for these are
the words of Christ: "God hath said He that curseth father or mother let him die
the death."[15] "And he is cursed of God that angereth his mother.[16] Hence we
may conclude that a parent's curse will bring ruin in its train, for God Himself
will ratify it. This is proved by many examples; and one which St. Augustine
relates in his City of God we will briefly narrate. In Caesarea, a town of
Cappadocia, there were ten children, namely seven boys and three girls, who were
cursed by their mother, and were immediately struck by heaven with such an
infliction that all their limbs shook, and, in this pitiable plight, wheresoever
any of them went, they were unable to bear the gaze of their fellow-citizens,
and thus they wandered throughout the whole Roman world. At last two of them
were cured by the relics of St. Stephen the Proto-martyr, in the presence of St.
Augustine.

CHAPTER XII: The fourth fruit
to be drawn from the consideration of the third Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

The burden and yoke our Lord imposed on St. John, in
intrusting to his care the protection of His Virgin Mother, was indeed a yoke
that was sweet, and a burden that was light Who indeed would not esteem it a
happiness to dwell under the same roof with her, who for nine months had borne
in her womb the Incarnate Word, and for thirty years enjoyed the most sweet and
happy communication of sentiments with Him? Who does not envy the chosen
disciple of our Lord, whose heart in the absence of the Son of God was gladdened
by the constant presence of the Mother of God? Yet if I mistake not it is in our
power to obtain by our prayers that our most kind Lord, Who became Man for our
sakes and was crucified for love of us, should say to us in reference to His
Mother, "Behold thy Mother," and should say to His Mother for each one of us
"Behold thy son!" Our good Lord is not avaricious of His graces, provided we
approach the throne of grace with faith and confidence, with true and open but
not dissembling hearts He Who wishes to have us coheirs in the kingdom of His
Father, will not disdain to have us coheirs in the love of His Mother Nor will
our most benign Lady take it amiss to have a countless host of children, since
she has a heart capable of embracing us all, and ardently desires that not one
of those sons should perish whom her Divine Son redeemed with His precious Blood
and His still more precious Death Let us therefore with confidence approach the
throne of the grace of Christ, and with tears humbly beg of Him to say to His
Mother for each of us, "Behold thy son," and to us in reference to His Mother,
"Behold thy Mother." How secure should we be under the protection of such a
Mother! Who would dare to drag us from beneath her mantle? What temptations,
what tribulations could overcome us if we confide in the protection of the
Mother of God and of our Mother? Nor should we be the first who had secured such
powerful patronage. Many have preceded us, many I say have placed themselves
under the singular and maternal protection of so powerful a Virgin, and no one
has been cast off by her with his soul in a perplexed and despondent state, but
all who confide in the love of such a Mother are happy and contented. Of her it
is written "She shall crush thy head."[1] Those who trust in her will safely
"walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and will trample under foot the lion and
the dragon."[2] Let us, however, listen to the words of a few distinguished men
out of the vast array who acknowledged that they had placed their hope of
salvation in the Virgin, and to whom we may believe our Lord had said "Behold
thy Mother," and of whom He had said to His Mother, "Behold thy
son."

The first shall be the Syrian, St. Ephrem, an ancient
Father of such renown that St. Jerome informs us his works were publicly read in
the churches after the Holy Scriptures. In one of his sermons on the praises of
the Mother of God, he says, "The undefiled and pure Virgin Mother of God, the
Queen of all, and the hope of those in despair." And again "Thou art a harbour
for those who are tossed by storms, the comfort of the world, the liberator of
those in prison; thou art the mother of orphans, the redeemer of captives, the
joy of the sick, and the star of safety for all." And again "Under thy wing,
guard and protect me, have mercy on me who am defiled with sin. I have
confidence in none other but thee, O Virgin most sincere. Hail peace, joy, and
safety of the world!" We will next quote St. John Damascene, who was one of the
first to show the greatest honour and place the greatest confidence in the
protection of the most holy Virgin. He thus discourses in a sermon on the
Nativity of the Blessed Virgin: "O daughter of Joachim and Anne, O Lady, receive
the prayers of a sinner who ardently loves and honours you, and looks up to you
as his only hope of joy, as the priestess of life, and the leader of sinners
back to grace and favour with your Son, and the secure depositary of safety,
lighten the burden of my sins, overcome my temptations, make my life pious and
holy, and grant that under thy guidance I may come to the happiness of heaven."
We will now select a few passages from two Latin Fathers. St. Anselm, in his
work on the "Excellence of the Virgin," somewhere says: "I consider it a great
sign of predestination for any one to have had the favour granted him of
frequently thinking of Mary." And again: "Remember that we sometimes obtain help
by invoking the name of the Virgin Mother sooner than if we had invoked the Name
of the Lord Jesus, her only Son, and this not because she is greater or more
powerful than He, nor because He is great and powerful through her, but she is
so through Him. How is it then that we obtain assistance sooner by invoking her
than by invoking her Son? I say that I think this is so, and my reason is that
her Son is the Lord and Judge of all, and is able to discern the merits of each.
Consequently when His Name is invoked by any one, He may justly turn a deaf ear
to the entreaty, but if the name of His Mother is invoked, even supposing that
the merits of the supplicant do not entitle him to be heard, still the merits of
the Mother of God are such that her Son cannot refuse to listen to her prayer."
But St. Bernard, in language which is truly wonderful, describes on the one hand
the holy and maternal affection with which the Blessed Virgin cherishes those
who are devout to her, and on the other hand the tender and filial love of those
who regard her as their Mother. In his second sermon on the text, "The Angel was
sent," he exclaims: "O thou, whoever thou art, that knowest thou art exposed to
the dangers of the tempestuous sea of this world more than thou enjoyest the
security of dry land, do not withdraw thy eyes from the splendour of this Star,
from Mary the Star of the Sea, unless thou wishest to be swallowed up in the
tempest. If the winds of temptations arise, if thou art thrown upon the rocks of
tribulations, look up to this Star, call upon Mary. If thou art tossed hither
and thither on the billows of pride, ambition, detraction, or envy, look up to
this Star, call on Mary. If thou, terrified at the enormity of thy crimes,
perplexed at the unclean state of thy conscience, and stricken with awe for thy
Judge, beginnest to be engulphed in the abyss of sadness or the pit of despair,
think of Mary; in all thy dangers, in all thy difficulties, in all thy doubts
think of Mary, call upon Mary. Thou wilt not go astray if thou followest her,
thou wilt not despair if thou prayest to her, thou wilt not err if thou thinkest
of her." The same Saint in his sermon on the Nativity of the Virgin, speaks as
follows. "Raise your thoughts and judge with what affection He wishes us to
honour Mary, Who has filled her soul with the plenitude of His goodness, so that
whatever hope, whatever grace, whatever preservation from sin is ours we may
recognize as flowing from her hands." "Let us then venerate Mary with our whole
hearts and all our votive offerings, for such is His will Who would have us
receive everything through Mary." "My children, she is the ladder for sinners,
she is my greatest confidence, she is the whole foundation of my hope." To these
extracts from the writings of two holy Fathers, I will add some quotations from
two holy theologians. St. Thomas, in his essay on the Angelical salutation,
says: "She is blessed among women because she alone has removed the curse of
Adam, brought blessings to mankind, and opened the gates of Paradise. Hence she
is called Mary, which name signifies 'Star of the Sea,' for as sailors steer
their ship to port by watching the stars, so Christians are brought to glory by
the intercession of Mary." St. Bonaventure in his Pharetra writes: "O most
Blessed Virgin, as every one that hates you and is forgotten by you must
necessarily perish, so every one that loves you and is loved by you must
necessarily be saved." The same Saint in his Life of St. Francis speaks of that
Saint's confidence in the Blessed Virgin in the following terms. "He loved the
Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ with an unspeakable love, by her our Lord Jesus
Christ became our brother, and by her we have obtained mercy. Next to Christ he
placed all his confidence in her, he regarded her as his own and his Order's
advocate, and in her honour devoutly fasted from the feast of St. Peter and Paul
to the Assumption." With these saints we will couple the name of Pope Innocent
III, who was eminently distinguished for his devotion to the Virgin, and not
only extolled her in his sermons, but built a monastery in her honour, and what
is more admirable, in an exhortation he made to his flock to induce them to
trust in her, he used words the truth of which was afterwards exemplified in his
own person. Thus he spoke in his second sermon on the Assumption: "Let the man
who is sitting in the darkness of sin look up to the moon, let him invoke Mary
that she may intercede with her Son, and bring him to compunction of heart. For
who has ever called upon her in his distress and has not been heard?" The reader
should consult cap. ix. book 2, on the "Tears of the Dove," and see what we have
there written about Pope Innocent III. From these extracts, and from these signs
of predestination, it is abundantly evident that a hearty devotion to the Virgin
Mother of God is not a modern introduction. For it seems incredible that that
man should perish in whose favour Christ had said to His Mother, "Behold thy
son," provided that he has not turned a deaf ear to the words which Christ had
addressed to himself, "Behold thy Mother."

We have explained in the preceding Part the three first
words which were spoken by our Lord from the pulpit of the Cross, about the
sixth hour, soon after His crucifixion. In this Part we will explain the
remaining four words, which, after the darkness and silence of three hours, this
same Lord from this same pulpit proclaimed with a loud voice. But first it seems
necessary briefly to explain what, and whence, and for what end arose the
darkness which intervened between the three first and the four last words, for
thus does St. Matthew speak: "Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over
the whole earth, until the ninth hour; and about the ninth hour Jesus cried with
a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani? that is, My God, My God, why
hast Thou forsaken Me?"[1] And that this darkness arose from an eclipse of the
sun is expressly told us by St. Luke: "And the sun was darkened,"[2] he
says.

But here three difficulties present themselves. In the
first place, an eclipse of the sun takes place at new moon, when the moon is
between the earth and the sun, and this could not be at the death of Christ,
because the moon was not in conjunction with the sun, as it is when there is a
new moon, but was opposite to the sun as at full moon, as the Passion occurred
at the Pasch of the Jews, which, according to St. Luke, was on the fourteenth
day of the lunar month. In the second place, even if the moon had been in
conjunction with the sun at the time of the Passion, the darkness could not have
lasted three hours, that is, from the sixth to the ninth hour, since an eclipse
of the sun does not last long, particularly if it is a total eclipse, when the
sun is so entirely hidden that its obscuration is called darkness. For as the
moon moves quicker than the sun, according to its own proper motion, it
consequently darkens the whole surface of the sun for a short time only, and,
being constantly in motion, the sun, as the moon recedes, begins to give its
light to the earth. Lastly, it can never happen that through the conjunction of
the sun and moon the whole earth should be left in darkness. For the moon is
smaller than the sun--smaller even than the earth, and therefore by its
interposition the moon cannot so obscure the sun as to deprive the universe of
its light. And if any one should maintain the opinion that the Evangelists speak
of the whole land of Palestine, and not of the whole world absolutely, he is
refuted by the testimony of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, who, in his Epistle to
St. Polycarp, declares that in the city of Heliopolis, in Egypt, he himself saw
this eclipse of the sun, and felt this horrid darkness. And Phlegon, a Greek
historian and a Gentile, refers to this eclipse when he says: " In the fourth
year of the two hundred and second Olympiad, there took place a greater and more
extraordinary eclipse than had ever happened before, for at the sixth hour the
light of day was changed into the darkness of night, so that the stars appeared
in the heavens." This historian did not write in Judaea, and he is quoted by
Origen against Celsus, and Eusebius in his Chronicles for the thirty-third year
of Christ. Lucian the martyr bears witness to the fact thus: "Look into our
annals, and you will find that in the time of Pilate the sun disappeared, and
the day was invaded by darkness." Ruffinus quotes these words of St. Lucian in
the Ecclesiastical history of Eusebius, which he himself translated into Latin.
Tertullian, also, in his "Apologeticon," and Paul Orosius, in his history--all,
in fact, speak of the whole globe, and not of Judaea only. Now for the solution
of the difficulties. What we said above, that an eclipse of the sun happens at
new moon, and not at full moon, is true when a natural eclipse takes place; but
the eclipse at the death of Christ was extraordinary and unnatural, because it
was the effect of Him Who made the sun and the moon, the heaven and the earth.
St. Dionysius, in the passage to which we have just referred, asserts that the
moon at mid-day was seen by himself and Apollophanes to approach the sun by a
rapid and unusual motion, and that the moon placed itself before the sun and
remained in that position till the ninth hour, and in the same manner returned
to its own place in the east. To the objection that an eclipse of the sun could
not last three hours, so that throughout that time darkness should overspread
the earth, we may reply, that in a natural and ordinary eclipse this would be
true; this eclipse, however, was not ruled by the laws of nature, but by the
will of the Almighty Creator, Who could as easily make the moon remain, as it
were, stationary before the sun, moving neither quicker nor slower than the sun,
as He could bring the moon in an extraordinary manner and with great velocity
from its position in the east to the sun, and after three hours make it return
to its proper place in the skies. Finally, an eclipse of the sun could not be
perceived at the same moment in every part of the world, since the moon is
smaller than the earth and much smaller than the sun. This is most true if we
regard the interposition of the moon alone; but what the moon could not of
itself do, the Creator of the sun and moon did, merely by not cooperating with
the sun in illuminating the globe. Nor, again, can it be true, as some suppose,
that this universal darkness was caused by dense and dark clouds, as it is
evident, on the authority of the ancients, that during this eclipse and darkness
the stars shone in heaven, and dense clouds would obscure not only the sun, but
also the moon and stars.

Various are the reasons given why God desired this
universal darkness during the Passion of Christ. There are two special ones.
First, to show the very great blindness of the Jewish people, as St. Leo tells
us in his tenth sermon on the Passion of our Lord, and this blindness of the
Jews lasts till this moment, and will last, according to the prophecy of Isaias:
"Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for thy light is come, and the glory of the
Lord is risen upon thee. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and a mist
the people:"[3] darkness, forsooth, the most dense shall cover the people of
Israel, and a mist which is lighter and easily dissipated shall cover the
Gentiles. The second reason, as St. Jerome teaches, was to show the enormity of
the sin of the Jews. Formerly, indeed, wicked men were wont to harass, and
persecute, and kill the good; now impious men have dared to persecute, and
crucify God Himself, Who had assumed our human nature. Formerly men disputed
with one another; from disputes they came to oaths; from oaths to blood and
slaughter; now servants and slaves have risen up against the King of men and
angels, and with unheard-of audacity have nailed Him to a Cross. Therefore the
whole world is filled with horror, and in order to show its detestation of such
a crime, the sun has withdrawn its rays and has covered the universe with a
terrible darkness.

Let us now come to the interpretation of the words of our
Lord: "Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani." These words are taken from the twenty-first
Psalm: "O God, my God, look upon me; why hast Thou forsaken me?"[4] The words
"look upon me," which occur in the middle of the verse, were added by the
Septuagint interpreters: but in the Hebrew text those words only are found which
our Lord pronounced. We must remark that the Psalms were written in Hebrew, and
the words spoken by Christ were partly Syriac, which was the language then in
use amongst the Jews. These words: "Tabitha cumi--"Damsel, I say to thee,
Arise," and Ephphetha--"Be thou opened," and some other words in the Gospel are
Syriac and not Hebrew. Our Lord then complains that He has been abandoned by
God, and He complains crying out with a loud voice. Both these circumstances
must be briefly explained. The abandonment of Christ by His Father might be
interpreted in five ways, but there is only one true interpretation. There were
indeed five unions between the Father and the Son: one the natural and eternal
union of the Person of the Son in essence: the second, a new bond of union of
the Divine nature with the human nature in the Person of the Son, or what is the
same thing, the union of the Divine Person of the Son with the human nature: the
third was the union of grace and will, for Christ as man was "full of grace and
truth,"[5] as He testifies in St. John: "I do always the things that please
Him:"[6] and of Him the Father spoke: "This is My beloved Son in Whom I am well
pleased."[7] The fourth was the union of glory, since the soul of Christ from
the moment of conception enjoyed the beatific vision: the fifth was the union of
protection to which He refers when He says: "And He that sent Me is with Me, and
He hath not left Me alone."[8] The first kind of union is inseparable and
eternal, because it is founded in the Divine Essence, so our Lord says: "I and
the Father are One:"[9] and therefore Christ did not say: My Father, why hast
Thou forsaken Me? but "My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" For the Father is
called the God of the Son only after the Incarnation and by reason of the
Incarnation. The second kind of union never has nor can be dissolved, because
what God has once assumed He can never lay aside and so the Apostle says: "He
that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all;[10] and, St.
Peter, "Christ suffered for us," and "Christ therefore having suffered in the
flesh:"[11] all which proves that it was not a mere man, but the true Son of
God, and Christ the Lord Who was crucified. The third kind of union also still
exists and ever will exist: "Because Christ also died once for our sins, the
just for the unjust,"[12] as St. Peter expresses it; for the death of Christ
would have profited us nothing had this union of grace been dissolved. The
fourth union could not be disturbed, because the beatitude of the soul cannot be
lost, since it embraces the enjoyment of every good, and the superior part of
the soul of Christ was truly happy.[13]

There remains then the union of protection only, which was
broken for a short period, in order to allow time for the oblation of the bloody
sacrifice for the redemption of mankind. God the Father indeed could in many
ways have protected Christ, and have hindered the Passion, and for this reason
in His Prayer in the Garden Christ says: "Father, all things are possible to
Thee: remove this chalice from Me, but not what I will, but what Thou wilt:"[14]
and again to St. Peter: "Thinkest Thou that I cannot ask My Father, and He will
give Me presently more than twelve legions of angels?"[15] Christ also as God
could have saved His Body from suffering, for He says "No man taketh" My life
"away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself[16] and this is what Isaias had
foretold: "He was offered because it was His own will."[17] Finally, the blessed
Soul of Christ could have transmitted to the Body the gift of impassibility and
incorruption; but it was pleasing to the Father, and to the Word, and to the
Holy Spirit, for the accomplishment of the decree of the Blessed Trinity, to
allow the power of man to prevail for a time against Christ. For this was that
hour to which Christ referred when He said to those who had come to apprehend
Him: "This is your hour and the power of darkness."[18] Thus then God abandoned
His Son when He allowed His Human flesh to suffer such cruel torments without
any consolation, and Christ crying out with a loud voice manifested this
abandonment so that all might know the greatness of the price of our redemption,
for up to that hour He had borne all His torments with such patience and
equanimity as to appear almost bereft of the power of feeling. He did not
complain of the Jews who accused Him, nor of Pilate who condemned Him, nor of
the soldiers who crucified Him. He did not groan: He did not cry out: He did not
give any outward sign of His suffering; and now at the point of death, in order
that mankind might understand, and that we, His servants, might remember so
great a grace, and value the price of our redemption, He wished publicly to
declare the great suffering of His Passion. Wherefore these words: "My God, why
hast Thou abandoned Me?" are not words of one who accuses, or who reproaches, or
who complains, but, as I have said, they are the words of One who declares the
greatness of His suffering for the best of reasons, and at the most opportune of
moments.

CHAPTER II: The first fruit to
be drawn from the consideration of the fourth word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

We have briefly explained what has reference to the history
of the fourth word: we must now gather some fruits from the tree of the Cross.
The first thought that presents itself is that Christ wished to drain the
chalice of His Passion even to the dregs. He remained on the Cross for three
hours, from the sixth to the ninth hour. He remained for three full and entire
hours, for even more than three hours, since He was fastened to the Cross before
the sixth hour, and He did not die till the ninth hour, as is proved thus. The
eclipse of the sun began at the sixth hour, as the three Evangelists Matthew,
Mark, and Luke show; St. Mark expressly says: "And when the sixth hour was come,
there was darkness over the whole earth until the ninth hour."[1] Now, our Lord
uttered His three first words on the Cross before the darkness began, and
consequently before the sixth hour. St. Mark explains this circumstance more
clearly by saying: "And it was the third hour, and they crucified Him;" and by
adding shortly afterwards; "And when the sixth hour was come, there was
darkness."[2] When he says that our Lord was crucified at the third hour, he
means that He was nailed to the Cross before the completion of that hour, and
therefore before the commencement of the sixth hour. We must here notice that
St. Mark speaks of the three principal hours, each of which contained three
ordinary hours, just as the householder summoned workmen to his vineyard at the
first, the third, the sixth, the ninth, and the eleventh hours,[3] and as the
Church calls the canonical hours Prime, Terce, Sext, Nones and Vespers, which
correspond to the eleventh hour. Therefore St. Mark says that our Lord was
crucified at the third hour, because the sixth hour had not yet
come.

Our Lord wished then to drink the full and overflowing
chalice of His Passion to teach us to love the bitter chalice of penance and
labour, and not to love the cup of consolations and worldly pleasures According
to the law of the flesh and the world we ought to choose small mortifications,
but great indulgences; little labour, but much joy; to take a short time for our
prayers, but a long time for idle conversations. Truly we know not what we ask,
for the Apostle warns the Corinthians: "And every man shall receive his own
reward according to his own labour:"[4] and again: "He is not crowned unless he
strive lawfully."[5] Eternal happiness ought to be the reward of eternal labour,
but because we could never enjoy eternal happiness if our labour here was to be
eternal, so our good Lord is satisfied, if during the life which passes as a
shadow we strive to serve Him by the exercise of good works; besides those who
spend this short life in idling, or what is still worse, in sinning and
provoking their God to anger, are not so much children as infants who have no
heart, no understanding, no judgment." For if Christ ought to suffer, and so to
enter His glory,"[6] how can we enter into a glory which is not our own by
losing our time in the pursuit of pleasures and the gratification of the flesh?
If the meaning of the Gospel was obscure, and could only be understood after
great labour, there might perhaps be some excuse; but its meaning has been
rendered so clear by the example of the life of Him Who first preached it, that
the blind cannot fail to perceive it. And not only has the teaching of Christ
been exemplified by His own life, but there have been as many commentaries on
His doctrine apparent to all, as there are apostles and martyrs and confessors
and virgins and saints whose praises and triumphs we celebrate every day. And
all these proclaim aloud that not through many pleasures, but "through many
tribulations," it behoveth us "to enter into the kingdom of
heaven."[7]

CHAPTER III. The second fruit
to be drawn from the consideration of the fourth Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

Another and very profitable fruit may be gathered from the
consideration of the silence of Christ during those three hours which intervened
between the sixth and the ninth hour. For, O my soul, what was it thy Lord did
during those three hours? Universal horror and darkness had overspread the
world, and thy Lord was reposing, not on a soft bed, but on a Cross, naked,
overwhelmed with sorrows, without any one to console Him. Thou, O Lord, Who
alone knowest what Thou sufferedst, teach Thy servants to understand what a debt
of gratitude they owe Thee, to condole with Thee with their tears, and to suffer
for Thy love, if it should so please Thee, the loss of every kind of consolation
in this their place of banishment.

"O My son, during the whole course of My mortal life, which
was nothing else but a continued labour and sorrow, I never experienced such
anguish as during those three hours, nor did I ever suffer with greater
willingness than then. For then through the weakness of My Body, My Wounds
became every moment more open, and the bitterness of My pains increased. Then,
too, the cold, which was intensified by the absence of the sun, made the
sufferings from the head to the foot of My naked Body greater. Then, too, the
very darkness which shut out from view the sky and the earth and all other
things, forced, as it were, My thoughts to dwell on nothing but the torments of
My Body, so that on this account those three hours seemed to be three years. But
because My Heart was inflamed with a longing desire to honour My Father, to show
My obedience to Him, and to procure the salvation of your souls, and the more
the pains of My Body increased the more was this desire satiated, so these three
hours seemed but three short moments, so great was My love in suffering."

"O dear Lord, if such indeed was the case, we are very
ungrateful if we find it hard to spend one hour in thinking of Thy pains, when
Thou didst not find it hard to hang on a Cross for our salvation for three full
hours, during a frightful darkness, in cold and nakedness, suffering an
intolerable thirst and most bitter pangs. But, O lover of men, I beseech Thee
answer me this. Could the vehemence of Thy sufferings withdraw Thy Heart from
prayer for one moment during those three long and silent hours? Because when we
are in distress, particularly if we suffer any bodily pain, we find the greatest
difficulty in praying."

"It was not so with Me, My son, because in a weak Body I
had a Soul ready for prayer. Indeed during those three hours, when not a word
escaped My lips, I prayed and supplicated the Father for you with My Heart. And
I prayed not with My Heart only, but also with My Wounds and with My Blood. For
there were as many mouths crying out for you to the Father as there were Wounds
in My Body, and My Wounds were many; and there were as many tongues beseeching
and begging for you from this same Father, Who is your Father as well as Mine,
as there were drops of Blood trickling to the ground."

"Now at last, O Lord, Thou hast plainly confounded the
impatience of Thy servant, who if perchance he comes to pray worn out with work,
or weighed down with affliction, can scarcely raise up his mind to God to pray
for himself; or if through Thy grace he does lift up his mind, he cannot keep
his attention fixed, but his thoughts must wander back to his labour or his
sorrow. Therefore, O Lord, have mercy on Thy servant according to Thy great
mercy, that imitating the great example of Thy patience he may walk in Thy
footsteps and learn to despise his slight afflictions, at least during his
prayer."

CHAPTER IV. The third fruit to
be drawn from the consideration of the fourth Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

When our Lord exclaimed on the Cross, "My God, My God, why
hast Thou forsaken Me?" He was not ignorant of the reason why God had forsaken
Him. For what could He be in ignorance of, Who knew all things? And thus St.
Peter, when he was asked by our Lord, "Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me?"
replied, " Lord, Thou knowest all things: Thou knowest that I love Thee."[1] And
the Apostle St. Paul, speaking of Christ, says, "In Whom are hid all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge."[2] Christ therefore asked, not in order that
He might learn anything, but to encourage us to inquire, so that by seeking and
finding we might learn many things that would be useful, perhaps even necessary
for us. Why, then, did God abandon His Son in the midst of His trials and bitter
anguish? Five reasons occur to me, and these I will mention in order that those
who are wiser than I may have the opportunity of investigating better and more
useful ones.

The first reason that occurs to me is the greatness and the
multitude of the sins which mankind have committed against their God, and which
the Son of God undertook to expiate in His own Flesh: "Who His own self," writes
St. Peter, "bore our sins in His Body upon the tree; that we being dead to sins,
should live to justice; by Whose stripes you were healed."[3] Indeed, the
enormity of the offences which Christ undertook to atone for in His Passion is
in a certain sense infinite, by reason of the Person of infinite majesty and
excellence which has been offended; but, on the other hand, the Person of Him
Who atones, which Person is the Son of God, is also of infinite majesty and
excellence, and consequently every suffering willingly undertaken by the Son of
God, even if He spilt but one drop of His Blood, would be a sufficient
atonement. Still it was pleasing to God that His Son should suffer innumerable
torments, and sorrows most severe, because we had committed not one but manifold
offences, and the Lamb of God, Who taketh away the sins of the world, took upon
Himself not the sin of Adam only, but all the sins of all mankind. This is shown
in that abandonment of which the Son complains to the Father: " Why hast Thou
forsaken Me?" The second reason is the greatness and the multitude of the pains
of hell, and the Son of God shows how great they are by wishing to quench them
in the torrents of His Blood. The prophet Isaias teaches us how terrible they
are, that they are clearly intolerable, for he asks: " Which of you can dwell
with devouring fire? Which of you shall dwell with everlasting burnings?"[4] Let
us therefore return thanks to God with our whole heart, Who was willing to
abandon His Only-Begotten Son to the greatest torments for a time, to free us
from flames which would be eternal. Let us return thanks, too, from the bottom
of our heart to the Lamb of God, Who preferred to be abandoned by God under His
chastising sword than abandon us to the teeth of that beast, who would ever gnaw
and would never be satisfied with gnawing us. The third reason is the high value
of the grace of God, which is that most precious pearl which Christ, the wise
merchant, purchased by the sale of everything He had, and restored to us. The
grace of God, which had been given to us in Adam, and which we lost through
Adam's sin, is so precious a stone that whilst it adorns our souls, and renders
them pleasing to God, it is also a pledge of eternal felicity. No one could
restore to us that precious stone, which was the gem of our riches, and of which
the cunning of the serpent had deprived us, except the Son of God, Who overcame
by His wisdom the wickedness of the devil, and Who gave it back to us at His own
great cost, since He endured so many labours and sorrows. The dutifulness of
that Son prevailed, Who took on Himself a most laborious pilgrimage to recover
for us that precious gem. The fourth cause was the exceeding greatness of the
kingdom of heaven, which the Son of God opened for us by His immense toil and
suffering, and to Whom the Church gratefully sings, "When Thou hadst overcome
the sting of death, Thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to believers." But in
order to conquer the sting of death it was necessary to sustain a hard contest
with death, and that the Son might triumph the more gloriously in this contest,
He was abandoned by His Father. The fifth cause was the immense love which the
Son had for His Father. For in the redemption of the world and in the wiping
away of sin, He proposed to make an abundant and a superabundant satisfaction to
the honour of His Father. And this could not have been done if the Father had
not abandoned the Son, that is, had not allowed Him to suffer all the torments
which could be devised by the malice of the devil, or could be endured by a man.
If, therefore, any one asks why God abandoned His Son on the Cross when He was
suffering such an extremity of torments, we can answer that He was abandoned in
order to teach us the greatness of sin, the greatness of hell, the greatness of
Divine grace, the greatness of eternal life, and the greatness of the love which
the Son of God had for His Father. From these reasons there arises another
question: Why, forsooth, has God mixed the martyrs' chalice of suffering with
such spiritual consolation as that they preferred to drain their chalice
sweetened with these consolations, than be without the suffering and the
consolation, and allowed His dearly beloved Son to drain to the dregs the bitter
chalice of His suffering without any consolation? The answer is, that in the
case of the martyrs none of the reasons which we have given above in reference
to our Lord have any place.

CHAPTER V: The fourth fruit to
be drawn from the consideration of the fourth Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

Another fruit may be gathered, not so much from the fourth
word itself, as from the circumstances of the time in which it was spoken: that
is, from the consideration of the terrible darkness that immediately preceded
the speaking of the word. The consideration of this darkness would be most
proper, not only for enlightening the Hebrew nation, but for strengthening
Christians themselves in the faith, if they would seriously apply their minds to
the force of the truths which we propose to found on it.

The first truth is that whilst Christ was on the Cross the
sun was so totally obscured that the stars were as visible as they are in the
night time. This fact is vouched for by five witnesses, most worthy of
credibility, who were of different nations, and wrote their books both at
different times and in different places, so that their writings could not have
been the result of any comparison or collusion. The first is St. Matthew, a Jew,
who wrote in Judaea, and was one of those who saw the sun darkened. Now
certainly a man of his caution and prudence would not have written what he has
written, and as is probable in the very city of Jerusalem, unless the fact he
described was true. For otherwise he would have been ridiculed and laughed at by
the inhabitants of the city and country for writing what everybody knew to be
false. Another witness is St. Mark, who wrote at Rome; he also saw the eclipse;
for he was in Judaea at the time with the other disciples of our Lord. The third
is St. Luke, who was a Greek who wrote in Greece: he also saw the eclipse at
Antioch. For since Dionysius the Areopagite saw it at Heliopolis in Egypt, St.
Luke could more easily see it at Antioch, which city is nearer Jerusalem than
Heliopolis. The fourth and fifth witnesses are Dionysius and Apollophanes, both
Greeks, and at the time Gentiles, and they distinctly assert that they saw the
eclipse and were filled with astonishment at it. These are the five witnesses
who bear testimony to the fact because they saw it. To their authority we may
add that of the Annals of the Romans, and Phlegon, the chronicler of the Emperor
Adrian, as we have shown above in the first chapter. Consequently this first
truth cannot without great rashness be denied either by Jews or Pagans. Amongst
Christians it is regarded as part of the Catholic faith.

The second truth is, that this eclipse could only be
brought about by the Almighty power of God: that therefore it could not be the
work of the devil, or of men through the agency of the devil, but proceeded from
the special Providence and will of God, the Creator and Ruler of the world. The
proof is this. The sun could only be eclipsed by one of three methods: either by
the interposition of the moon between the sun and earth; or by some vast and
dense cloud; or through the absorption or extinction of the sun's rays. The
interposition of the moon could not by the laws of nature have happened, since
it was the Pasch of the Jews, and the moon was at its full. The eclipse then
must have happened either without the interposition of the moon, or the moon, by
some extraordinary and great miracle, must have passed in a few hours over a
space which naturally it would take fourteen days to accomplish, and then by a
repetition of the miracle have returned to its proper place. Now it is admitted
by every one that God alone can influence the motions of the heavenly spheres,
for the devils have power only in this globe, and so the Apostle calls Satan
"The prince of the power of this air."

The eclipse of the sun could not have happened in the
second method, for a dense and thick cloud could not hide the rays of the sun
without at the same time concealing the stars. And we have the authority of
Phlegon for saying that during this eclipse the stars were as visible in the sky
as they are during the night. As for the third method, we must remember that the
rays of the sun could not be absorbed or extinguished but by the power of God
Who created the sun. Therefore this second truth is as certain as the first, and
cannot be denied without an equal degree of rashness.

The third truth is that the Passion of Christ was the cause
of this eclipse which was brought about by the special Providence of God, and is
proved by the fact that the darkness overshadowed the earth just as long as our
Lord remained alive on the Cross, that is from the sixth to the ninth hour. This
is attested by all those who speak of the eclipse; nor could it happen that an
eclipse which was itself miraculous should by chance coincide with the Passion
of Christ. For miracles are not the result of chance, but of the power of God.
Nor am I aware of any author who could assign another cause for this so
wonderful an eclipse. Those then that know Christ acknowledge that it was
brought about for His sake, and those who do not know Him confess their
ignorance of its object, but remain in admiration of the
fact.

The fourth truth is, that so terrible a darkness could only
show the sentence of Caiphas and Pilate to be most unjust, Jesus to be the true
and only Son of God, the Messias promised to the Jews. This was the reason why
the Jews demanded His death. For when in the council of the Priests, the
Scribes, and the Pharisees, the High Priest saw that the evidence produced
against Him proved nothing, he arose and said: "I adjure Thee by the living God
that Thou tell us if Thou be the Son of God."

And on our Lord acknowledging and confessing Himself to be
so, he "rent his garments saying He hath blasphemed what further need have we of
witnesses? Behold, now you have heard the blasphemy; what think you? But they
answering said: He is guilty of death."[2] Again when He was before Pilate, who
wished to liberate Him, the Chief Priests and people cried out: "We have a law;
and according to the law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of
God."[3] This was the principal reason why Christ our Lord was condemned to the
death of the Cross, and it was foretold by Daniel the prophet when he said:
"Christ shall be slain: and the people that shall deny Him shall not be His."[4]
For this cause, then, during the Passion of Christ, God allowed a horrible
darkness to overspread the whole world, to show most clearly that the High
Priest was wrong: that the Jewish people was wrong: that Herod was wrong, and
that He Who was hanging on the Cross was His only Son, the Messias. And when the
Centurion saw these heavenly manifestations he exclaimed, "Indeed this was the
Son of God;"[5] and again, "Indeed this was a just Man."[6] For the Centurion
recognized such celestial signs as the voice of God annulling the sentence of
Caiphas and Pilate, and declaring that this Man was condemned to death contrary
to all law, since He was the author of life, the Son of God, the promised
Christ. For what else could God mean by this darkness, by the secret splitting
of the rocks, and the rending of the veil of the Temple, but that He withdrew
Himself from a people who were once His own, and was wrathful with a great wrath
because they had not known the time of their visitation.

Certainly if the Jews would consider these things, and at
the same time turn their attention to the fact that from that day they have been
scattered through every nation, have had neither kings nor pontiffs, nor altars,
nor sacrifices, nor miracles, nor prophets, they must conclude that they have
been abandoned by God, and what is worse, have been given over to a reprobate
sense, and that that is now being accomplished in them what Isaias foretold when
he introduces the Lord as saying: "Hearing hear and understand not: and see the
vision and know it not. Blind the heart of this people and make their ears heavy
and shut their eyes: lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and
understand with their hearts and be converted and I heal
them.[7]

CHAPTER VI: The fifth fruit to
be drawn from the consideration of the fourth Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

In the three first words Christ our Master has recommended
to us three great virtues--charity towards our enemies, kindness to those in
distress, and affection for our parents. In the four last words He recommends to
us four virtues, not indeed more excellent, but still not less necessary for us,
humility, patience, perseverance, and obedience. Of humility, indeed, which may
be called the characteristic virtue of Christ, since no mention of it has been
made in the writings of the wise men of this world, He gave us examples by His
actions through the whole course of His life and in chosen words showed Himself
to be a Master of the virtue when He said-- "Learn of Me, because I am meek and
humble of Heart."[1] But at no time did He more clearly encourage us to the
practice of this virtue, and along with it of patience, which cannot be
separated from humility, than when He exclaimed--"My God, My God, why hast Thou
forsaken Me?" For Christ shows us in these words that by the permission of God,
as the darkness testified, all His glory and excellence had been obscured, and
our Lord could not have borne this, had He not possessed the virtue of humility
in the most heroic degree.

The glory of Christ, of which St. John writes in the
beginning of his Gospel--"We saw His glory, the glory as it were of the
Only-Begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth,"[2] consisted in His
Power, His Wisdom, His Uprightness, His royal Majesty, the happiness of His
Soul, and His Divine dignity which He enjoyed as the true and real Son of God.
The words, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me," show that His Passion
threw a veil over all these gifts. His Passion threw a veil over His power,
because when fastened to the Cross He appeared so powerless, that the Chief
Priests, the soldiers and the thief mocked His weakness by saying--"If Thou be
the Son of God, come down from the Cross; He saved others, Himself He cannot
save."[3] What patience, what humility was necessary for Him Who was Almighty,
to answer never a word to such taunts! His Passion threw a veil over His Wisdom,
because before the High Priest, before Herod, before Pilate, He stood as one
devoid of understanding and answered their questions by silence, so that "Herod
with his army set Him at naught, and mocked Him, putting on Him a white
garment."[4] What patience, what humility, was necessary for Him Who was not
only wiser than Solomon, but was the very Wisdom of God Himself, to tolerate
such outrages! His Passion threw a veil over the uprightness of His life, since
He was nailed to a Cross between two thieves, as a seducer of the people, and a
usurper of another's kingdom. And Christ confessed that the being abandoned by
His Father seemed to cast a greater gloom over the glory of His innocent live.
"Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" For God is not wont to abandon upright, but wicked
men. Every proud man indeed takes particular care to avoid saying anything which
could lead his hearers to infer that he had been slighted. But humble and
patient men, of whom Christ is the King, eagerly seize every occasion of
practicing their humility and patience, provided that in so doing there is no
violation of truth. What patience, what humility was it necessary to possess, in
order to endure such insults, especially for Him of Whom St. Paul says--"It was
fitting that we should have such a High Priest, holy, innocent, undefiled,
separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens."[5] His Passion cast
such a veil over His regal Majesty that He had a crown of thorns for a diadem, a
reed for a sceptre, a gibbet for an audience chamber, two thieves for His royal
attendants. What patience then, what humility was necessary for Him Who was the
true King of kings, Lord of lords, and Prince of the kings of this world. What
shall I say about the happiness of soul which Christ enjoyed from the very
moment of His conception, and of which, had He wished, He could have made His
Body partaker? What a veil did His Passion throw over the glory of this
happiness, since it made Him as Isaias says--"Despised, and the most abject of
men, a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity,"[6] so that in the
greatness of His suffering He cried out, "My God, My God, Why hast Thou forsaken
Me?" In fine, His Passion so obscured the mighty dignity of His Divine Person,
that He Who is seated not only above all men, but above the -very Angels, could
say--"But I am a Worm and no man, the reproach of men, and the outcast of the
people."[7]

Christ in His Passion, then, descended to the very abyss of
humility, but this humility had its reward and its glory. What our Lord had so
often promised that "he that shall humble himself shall be exalted," the Apostle
tells us was exemplified in His own Person. " He humbled Himself, becoming
obedient unto death, even to the death of the Cross. For which cause also God
hath exalted Him, and hath given Him a Name which is above all names; that in
the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth,
and under the earth."[8] So He Who appeared to be the least of men is declared
to be the first, and a short and as it were momentary humiliation has been
followed by a glory which shall be eternal. Thus has it been with the Apostles
and all the Saints. St. Paul says of the Apostles--"We are made as the refuse of
this world, the offscouring of all even until now;"[9] that is, he compares them
to the vilest things that are trodden under foot. Such was their humility. What
is their glory? St. John Chrysostom tells us that the Apostles now in heaven,
are seated close to the very throne of God, where the Cherubim praise Him and
the Seraphim obey Him. They are associated with the greatest princes of the
celestial court. They shall be there for ever. If men would consider how
glorious a thing it is to imitate in this life the humility of the Son of God,
and would picture to themselves to what a height of glory this humility would
lead them, we should find very few proud men. But since the majority of men
measure everything by their senses and by human considerations, we must not be
astonished if the number of the humble is small, and the number of the proud
infinite.

The fifth word, which is found in St. John, consists of the
one only word "I thirst." But to understand it we must add the preceding and
subsequent words of the same Evangelist. "Afterwards Jesus knowing that all
things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, I
thirst. Now there was a vessel set there full of vinegar. And they putting a
sponge full of vinegar about hyssop, put it to His mouth."[1] The meaning of
which words is, that our Lord wished to fulfill everything, which His Prophets,
inspired by the Holy Ghost, had foretold about His life and death; and now
everything had been accomplished with the exception of having gall mixed with
His drink, according to that of the sixty-eighth Psalm: "And they gave Me gall
for My food, and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink."[2] Therefore was
it that He cried out with a loud voice, "I thirst;" that the Scriptures might be
fulfilled. But why in order that the Scriptures should be fulfilled? Why not
rather because He was really thirsty and wished to quench His thirst? A prophet
does not prophesy for the purpose of that being accomplished which he foretells,
but he prophesies because he sees that that will be accomplished which he
foretells, and therefore he foretells it. Consequently the foreseeing or
foretelling anything is not the cause of its happening, but the event that is to
happen is the cause why it can be foreseen and foretold. Here we have a great
mystery laid open before us. Our Lord had suffered a most grievous thirst from
the beginning of His Crucifixion, and this thirst kept on increasing, so that it
became one of the greatest pains He endured on the Cross, for the shedding a
great quantity of blood parches a person, and produces a violent thirst. I
myself once knew a man who was suffering from a serious wound and consequent
loss of blood, who asked for nothing else but drink, as though his wound were of
no consideration, but his thirst terrible. The same is related of St.
Emmerammus, the martyr, who was bound to a stake, and otherwise grievously
tortured, yet complained only of thirst. But Christ had been dragged backwards
and forwards through the city, during the Scourging at the pillar had most
copiously shed that Blood which during His Crucifixion flowed from His Body, as
from four fountains, and this loss of Blood had continued for hours. Must He not
then have suffered a most violent thirst? Yet He endured this agony for three
hours in silence, and could have endured it even to His death, which was so near
at hand. Then why did He keep silent on this point for so long a time, and at
the moment of death, disclose His suffering by crying out, "I thirst!" Because
it was the will of God that we should all know His Divine Son had suffered this
agony, and so our heavenly Father had wished it to be foretold by His Prophet,
and He also wished our Lord Jesus Christ, for the sake of giving an example of
patience to His faithful followers to acknowledge that He suffered this intense
agony by exclaiming, "I thirst;" that is, all the pores of My Body are closed,
My veins are parched up, My tongue is parched, My palate is parched, My throat
is parched, all My members are parched; if any one longs to relieve Me, let him
give Me to drink.

Let us consider now what drink was offered Him by those who
stood by the Cross. "Now there was a vessel set there full of vinegar. And they
putting a sponge full of vinegar about hyssop put it to His mouth." Oh, what
consolation! What a relief! There was a vessel full of vinegar, a beverage which
tends to make wounds smart and hasten death, and for this reason was it kept in
order to make those who were crucified die the quicker. In treating of this
point, St. Cyril says with truth, "Instead of a refreshing and cooling draught,
they offered Him one that was hurtful and bitter." And if we consider what St.
Luke writes in his Gospel, this becomes all the more probable: "And the soldiers
also mocked Him, coming to Him and offering Him vinegar."[3] Although St. Luke
speaks of this as happening to our Lord as soon as He was nailed to the Cross,
still we may piously believe that when the soldiers heard Him exclaiming, "I
thirst," they offered Him vinegar by means of that same sponge and reed which in
their derision they had previously offered Him. We must conclude then that as at
first a little before His Crucifixion they presented Him with wine mixed with
gall, so at the point of death they gave Him vinegar, a drink most distasteful
to a man in His agony, so that the Passion of Christ was from first to last a
real and genuine Passion which admitted no consolation.

ENDNOTES

1. St. John xxi. 28, 29.2. Psalm
lxviii. 22.3. St. Luke xxiv. 36.

CHAPTER VIII: The first fruit
to be derived from the consideration of the fifth Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

The Scriptures of the Old Testament are often to be
interpreted by the Scriptures of the New Testament, but as regards this mystery
of our Lord's thirst the words of the sixty-eighth Psalm may be regarded as a
commentary of the Gospel. For we cannot absolutely decide from the words of the
Gospel whether those who offered our thirsting Lord vinegar did so for the
purpose of affording relief, or for the sake of aggravating His pain, that is
whether they did so from a motive of love or hatred. With St. Cyril we are
inclined to believe that they did so in the latter sense, because the words of
the Psalmist are too clear to require any explanation; and from these words we
may draw this lesson, to learn to thirst with Christ after those things, for
which we may thirst with profit. This is what the Psalmist says: "And I looked
for one that would grieve together with Me, but there was none: and for one that
would comfort Me, and I found none. And they gave Me gall for My food, and in My
thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink."[1] And so those, who a little before His
Crucifixion gave our Lord wine mixed with gall as well as those who offered our
crucified Lord vinegar only, represent those of whom He complains when He says:
"I looked for one that would grieve together with Me, but there was none; and
for one that would comfort Me, and I found none."

But perhaps some one may ask: Did not His Blessed Virgin
Mother, and His Mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene, and the
Apostle St. John who stood near the Cross truly and heartily grieve together
with Him? Did not those holy women who followed our Lord to Mount Calvary,
bewailing His lot, truly grieve together with Him? Were not the Apostles, during
the whole time of His Passion, in a state of sorrow, according to that
prediction of Christ--"Amen, amen, I say to you, that you shall lament and weep,
but the world shall rejoice?"[2] All these grieved and truly grieved, but they
did not grieve together with Christ, because the cause and reason of their
sorrow was quite different from the cause and reason of Christ's sorrow. Our
Lord says; "I looked for one that would grieve together with me, and there was
none, and for one that would comfort me, and I found none." They grieved for
Christ's corporal suffering and death; but He did not grieve for this except for
a short time in the garden to prove that He really was Man. Did He not say:
"With desire I have desired to eat this Pasch with you before I suffer,"[3] and
again: "If you loved Me, you would indeed be glad, because I go to the
Father?"[4] What then was the cause of that sorrow of our Lord in which He found
none to grieve together with Him? It was the loss of souls for whom He was
suffering. And what was the source of that comfort which He could find none to
offer Him, but cooperating with Him for the salvation of souls after which He so
ardently longed? This was the one comfort He sought after, this He desired, this
He hungered for, this He thirsted for; but they gave Him gall for His food, and
vinegar for His drink. Sin is signified by the bitterness of the gall, than
which nothing can be more bitter to one who has the sense of taste; and
obstinacy in sin is shown by the sharpness and pungency of the vinegar. Christ,
then, had a real cause for sorrow when He saw for the thief who was converted,
not only another remain in his obstinacy but countless others besides; when He
saw that all His Apostles were scandalized at His Passion, that Peter had denied
Him, that Judas had betrayed Him.

If then any one desires to comfort and console Christ
hungering and thirsting on the Cross, and full of sorrow and grief, let him in
the first place show himself truly penitent; let him detest his own sins, and
then along with Christ let him conceive a great sorrow in his heart, because so
great a number of souls daily perish, though all could so easily be saved would
they but use the grace He has purchased for them in redeeming them. St. Paul was
one of those who grieved together with Christ, when in His Epistle to the Romans
he says; "I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing me
witness in the Holy Ghost that I have great sadness and continual sorrow in my
heart. For I wished myself to be an anathema from Christ, for my brethren, who
are my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongeth the
adoption as of children," &c.[5] The Apostle could not more closely show his
longing desire for the salvation of souls than by this climax; "For I wished
myself to be an anathema from Christ." He means, according to what St. John
Chrysostom says in his work on Compunction of Heart, that he was so exceedingly
afflicted at the damnation of the Jews as to wish, if it were possible, to be
separated from Christ, for the sake of the glory of Christ.[6] He did not desire
to be separated from the love of Christ, as that would be contradictory to what
he elsewhere states in the same epistle; "Who then shall separate us from the
love of Christ?"[7] but from the glory of Christ, preferring to be deprived of a
participation in the glory of his Saviour rather than that his Lord should be
deprived of the additional fruit of His Passion, which would accrue from the
conversion of so many thousands of Jews. He truly grieved together with Christ
and solaced the grief of his Divine Master. But how few imitators has the great
Apostle now-a-days? In the first place, many pastors of souls are more afflicted
if the revenues of the Church are diminished or lost than if a great number of
souls perished through their absence or neglect. "We bear," says St. Bernard,
speaking of some, "we bear the detriment which Christ suffers with more
equanimity than we should bear our own loss. We balance our daily expenses by a
daily entrance of our gains, and we know nothing of the daily loss which happens
to the flock of Christ."[8] It is not enough for a bishop to lead a holy life,
and endeavour in his private conduct to imitate the virtues of Christ, unless he
endeavours to make his subjects, or rather his children, holy, and tries to lead
them, by making them follow in the footsteps of Christ, to eternal joy. Let
those, then, who desire to suffer with Christ, to mourn with Him and to
compassionate Him in His sorrows, ever watch over His flock, never forsake His
lambs, but direct them by their words, and lead them by their
example.

Of the laity too might Christ reasonably complain, for
neither sorrowing with Him, nor affording Him any relief in His sorrow. And if
when hanging on the Cross He complained of the perfidy and obstinacy of the
Jews, on whom His labours were lost, by whom His sorrows were ridiculed, and, as
on so many madmen, the precious medicine of His Blood was wasted, how might He
complain now at beholding, not from the Cross, but from heaven itself, those who
believe in Him, profit nothing by His Passion, tread His precious Blood under
foot, and offer Him gall and vinegar by daily increasing their sins, without a
thought of the Divine judgment or a fear of the fire of hell! "There shall be
joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance."[9] But is not this
joy turned into sorrow, milk into gall, and wine into vinegar, when he who by
faith and baptism has been born as it were in Christ, and who by the Sacrament
of Penance has been resuscitated from death to life, within a short while after
again kills his soul by a relapse into mortal sin?" A woman when she is in
labour hath sorrow, but when she hath brought forth the child, she remembereth
no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world."[10] But is not
the mother afflicted with a two-fold grief if the child dies immediately after
birth, or is still- born? So many work for their salvation by confessing their
sins, perhaps even by fasting and alms-deeds, but their labour is in vain and
they never obtain pardon for their sins, because they have a false conscience or
are guilty of a culpable ignorance. Do not these labour, and labour uselessly,
and afflict both themselves and their confessors with a double grief? Such
people are like a sick man who accelerates his death by the use of a bitter
medicine which he hoped would cure him; or like a gardener who bestows great
pains on his vinery and grounds, and loses the whole fruit of his care by a
sudden storm. These then are the evils we ought to deplore, and whosoever mourns
and is afflicted thereat really grieves with Christ on the Cross, and whosoever
labours according to his strength in lessening them, alleviates the sorrows and
grief of his crucified Lord, and shall participate with Him in the joys of
heaven, and shall reign for ever with Him in the kingdom of His heavenly
Father.

CHAPTER IX: The second fruit
to be derived from the consideration of the fifth Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

When I attentively meditate on the thirst which Christ
endured on the Cross, another and very useful consideration occurs to me. Our
Lord seems to me to have said, "I thirst," in the same sense as that in which He
addressed the Samaritan woman, "Give Me to drink." For when He unfolded the
mystery contained in these words, He added, "If thou didst know the gift of God,
and Who it is that saith to thee, Give Me to drink, thou perhaps wouldst have
asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water."[1] Now, how could He
thirst Who is the fount of living water? Does He not refer to Himself in saying,
"If any man thirst, let Him come to Me and drink?"[2] And is He not that rock of
which the Apostle speaks: "And they drank of the spiritual rock which followed
them, and the rock was Christ?"[3] In fine, is it not He Who addresses the Jews
by the mouth of Jeremias the Prophet: "They have forsaken Me the fountain of
living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can
hold no water?"[4] It seems to me, then, that our Lord from the Cross, as from a
high throne, casts a look over the whole world, which is full of men who are
athirst and fainting from exhaustion, and by reason of His parching state He
pities the drought which mankind endures, and cries aloud, "I thirst," that is,
I am thirsty on account of the dried and arid state of My Body, but this thirst
will quickly end. The thirst, however, that I suffer from My desire that men
should begin by faith to know that I am the true fount of living water, should
come to Me and drink, that they may not thirst for ever, is incomparably
greater.

Oh, how happy should we be if we would but listen with
attention to this address of the Word Incarnate! Does not almost every man
thirst, with the burning and insatiable thirst of concupiscence, after the
fleeting and turbid waters of transitory and perishable things, which are called
goods, such as money, honour, pleasures? And who is there that has listened to
the words of his Master, Christ, and has tasted the living water of heavenly
wisdom, that has not felt a loathing for earthly things, and begun to aspire
after those of heaven, who has not laid aside the desire of acquiring and
accumulating the things of this world and begun to aspire and long after those
of heaven? This living water does not spring out of the earth, but comes down
from heaven, and our Lord, Who is the fount of living water, will give it to us
if we ask Him for it with fervent prayers and copious tears. Not only will it
take away all eager longing for the things of earth, but will become an
unfailing source of food and drink for us in this our exile. In this strain does
Isaias speak: "All you that thirst, come to the waters,"[5] and that we may not
think this water is precious or dear, he adds: "Make haste, buy and eat; come
ye, buy wine and milk without any price." It is called a water that must be
bought, because it cannot be acquired without some effort, and without being in
the proper dispositions for receiving it, but it is bought without silver or any
bartering, because it is freely given, as it is invaluable. What the Prophet in
one line calls water, he calls in the next wine and milk, because it is so
efficacious as to embrace the qualities of water, wine, and
milk.

True wisdom and charity is called water, because it cools
the heat of concupiscence; it is called wine because it warms and inebriates the
mind with a sober ardour; it is called milk because it nourishes the young in
Christ with a strengthening food, as St. Peter says: "As new-born babes desire
the rational milk."[6] This same true wisdom and charity--the very opposite to
the concupiscence of the flesh--is that yoke which is sweet, that burden which
is light, which those who take up willingly and humbly find to be a true and
real rest to their souls, so that they no longer thirst, nor do they labour to
draw water from earthly sources. This most enjoyable rest for the soul has
filled deserts, peopled monasteries, reformed the clergy, restrained the
married. The palace of Theodosius the Younger was not unlike a monastery; the
house of Count Elzearius differed but little from a house of poor religious.
Instead of oaths and quarrels, the Psalms and the sound of sacred music were
heard there. All these blessings we owe to Christ, Who satiated our thirst at
the price of His own suffering, and so watered the arid hearts of men that they
will never more thirst, unless at the instigation of their enemy they wilfully
withdraw themselves from that everlasting spring.

CHAPTER X: The third fruit to
be drawn from the consideration of the fifth Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

The imitation of the patience of Christ is the third fruit
to be gathered from the consideration of the fifth word. In the fourth word the
humility of Christ, coupled with His patience, was conspicuous. In the fifth
word His patience alone shines forth. Now, patience is not only one of the
greatest virtues, but is positively the most necessary for us. St. Cyprian says,
"Amongst all the paths of heavenly training, I know of none more profitable for
this life or advantageous for the next, than that those who strive in fear and
devotion to obey the commandments of God, should above all things practice the
virtue of patience." But before we speak of the necessity of patience we must
distinguish the virtue from its counterfeit. True patience enables us to bear
the misfortune of suffering without incurring the misfortune of sin. Such was
the patience of the martyrs, who preferred to endure the tortures of the
executioner rather than deny the faith of Christ, who preferred to suffer the
loss of their earthly goods rather than worship false gods. The counterfeit of
this virtue urges us to undergo every hardship to obey the law of concupiscence,
to risk the loss of eternal happiness for the sake of a momentary pleasure. Such
is the patience of the slaves of the devil, who put up with hunger and thirst,
cold and heat, loss of reputation, even of heaven itself, in order to increase
their riches, to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh, or to gain a post of
honour.

True patience has the property of increasing and preserving
all other virtues. St. James is our authority for this eulogium of patience. He
says, "And patience hath a perfect work: that you may be perfect and entire,
failing in nothing."[1] On account of the difficulties we meet with in the
practice of virtue, none can flourish without patience, but when other virtues
are accompanied by this one, all difficulties vanish, for patience renders
crooked paths straight, and rough paths smooth. And this is so true that St.
Cyprian, speaking of charity, the queen of virtues, cries out, "Charity, the
bond of fraternity, the foundation of peace, the power and strength of union, is
greater than faith or hope. It is the virtue from which martyrs derived their
constancy, and it is the one we shall practice for ever in the kingdom of
heaven. But separate it from patience, and it will droop; take away from it the
power of suffering and enduring, and it will wither and die."[2] The same Saint
shows the necessity of this virtue also for preserving our chastity,
uprightness, and peace with our neighbour. "If the virtue of patience is
strongly and firmly rooted in your hearts, your body, which is holy and the
temple of the living God, will not be polluted with adultery, your uprightness
will not be sullied with the stain of injustice, nor after having fed on the
Body of Christ will your hand be imbrued with blood." He means to signify by the
contraries to these words, that without patience neither a chaste man will be
able to preserve his purity, nor a just man be equitable, nor one who has
received the Holy Eucharist be free from the danger of anger and
homicide.

What St. James writes of the virtue of patience is taught
in other words by the Prophet David, by our Lord, and His Apostle. In the ninth
Psalm, David says, "The patience of the poor shall not perish for ever,"[3]
because it has a perfect work, and consequently its fruit will never decay. Just
as we are wont to say that the labours of the husbandman are profitable when
they produce a good crop, and are useless when they bring forth nothing, so
patience is said never to perish because its effects and rewards will remain for
ever. In the text we have just quoted, the word poor is interpreted as meaning
the humble man who confesses that he is poor, and can neither do nor suffer
anything without the help of God. In his treatise on patience,[4] St. Austin
shows that not only the poor, but even the rich, may possess true patience,
provided they trust not in themselves but in God, from Whom, as really in want
of all Divine gifts, they may ask and receive this favour. Our Lord seems to
imply the same when He says in the Gospel, " In your patience you shall possess
your souls."[5] For they only really possess their souls, that is, their life as
their own, and of which nothing can deprive them, who endure with patience every
affliction, even death itself, in order not to sin against God. And although by
death they appear to lose their souls, still they do not lose them, but preserve
them for ever. For the death of the just is not death, but a sleep, and may even
be regarded as a sleep of short duration. But the impatient, who in order to
preserve the life of the body, do not hesitate to sin by denying Christ, by
worshipping idols, by yielding to their lustful desires, or by committing some
other crime, appear indeed to preserve their life for a time, but in reality
lose the life both of body and soul for ever. And as of the really patient it
may with truth be said, "A hair of your head shall not perish,"[6] so of the
impatient might we with equal truth exclaim: There is not a single member of
your body that shall not be burnt in the fire of hell.

Lastly, the Apostle confirms our opinion: "For patience is
necessary for you, that doing the will of God you may receive the promise."[7]
In this text St. Paul explicitly asserts patience to be not only useful, but
even necessary in order to accomplish the will of God, and by accomplishing it
to feel in ourselves the effect of His promise: "To receive the crown of glory
which God hath promised to them that love Him,"[8] and keep His commandments,
for "If any one love Me he will keep My word," and "He that loveth Me not,
keepeth not My words."[9] So we see that the whole of Scripture teaches the
faithful the necessity of the virtue of patience. For this reason Christ wished
in the last moments of His life to declare that inward, and most bitter, and
long endured suffering of His--His thirst--to encourage us by such an example to
preserve our patience in every misfortune. That the thirst of Christ was a most
vehement torture we have shown in the preceding chapter, that it was a long
endured suffering we can easily prove.

To begin with the Scourging at the pillar. When that took
place Christ was already fatigued by His prolonged prayer and Agony and Sweat of
blood in the Garden, by His many journeys to and fro during the night and the
succeeding morning, from the Garden to the house of Annas, from the house of
Annas to that of Caiphas, from the house of Caiphas to that of Pilate, from the
house of Pilate to that of Herod, and from the house of Herod back again to
Pilate. Moreover, from the time of the Last Supper our Lord had not tasted food
or drink, or enjoyed a moment's repose, but had endured many and grievous
insults in the house of Caiphas, was then cruelly scourged, which of itself was
sufficient to produce a terrible thirst, and when the scourging was over His
thirst, far from being satiated, was increased, for there followed the crowning
with thorns and the mocking Him in derision. And when He had been crowned, His
thirst, far from being satiated, was increased, for there followed the carrying
of the Cross; and loaded with the instrument of His death, our wearied and
exhausted Lord struggled up the hill of Calvary. When He arrived there they
offered Him wine mixed with gall, which He tasted but would not drink. And so
this journey was over at last, but the thirst that throughout the whole way had
tortured our dear Lord, was undoubtedly increased. Then followed the
Crucifixion, and as the Blood flowed from His four Wounds as from four
fountains, every one may conceive how enormous His thirst must have been.
Finally, for three successive hours, in the midst of a fearful darkness, we must
again try to imagine with what a burning thirst that sacred Body was consumed.
And although those that stood by offered vinegar to His mouth, still, as it was
not wine or water, but a sharp and bitter draught, and that a very small
draught, as He had to suck it up in drops from a sponge, we may without
hesitation assert that our Redeemer from the very commencement of His Passion
even to His death, endured with the most heroic patience this awful agony. Few
of us can know by experience how great this suffering is, as we can find water
anywhere to slake our thirst, but those who journey many days together in a
desert sometimes learn what the torture of thirst is like.

Curtius relates that Alexander the Great was once marching
through a desert with his army, and that after suffering all the deprivations of
the want of water, they came up to a river, and the soldiers began to drink its
waters with such eagerness, that many died in the very act, and he adds that "he
number of those who perished on that occasion was greater than he had lost in
any battle." Their burning thirst was so insupportable that the soldiers could
not restrain themselves so far as to take breath whilst they were drinking, and
consequently Alexander lost a great part of his army. There have been others who
have suffered so much from thirst as to think muddy water, oil, blood, and other
impure things, which no one would touch unless reduced by dire necessity,
delicious. From this we may learn how great was the Passion of Christ, and how
brilliantly His patience was displayed throughout. God grant that we may know
this, imitate it, and by suffering together with Christ here, come to reign with
Him hereafter.

But I fancy that I hear some pious souls exclaim that they
are eager and anxious to know by what means they can best imitate the patience
of Christ, and be able to say with the Apostle, "With Christ I am nailed to the
Cross,"[10] and with St. Ignatius the Martyr, "My Love is crucified."[11] It is
not so difficult as many imagine. It is not necessary for all to lie on the
ground, to scourge themselves to blood, to fast daily on bread and water, to
wear a coarse hair-cloth, an iron chain, or other instruments of penance for
conquering the flesh, and crucifying it with its vices and concupiscences. These
practices are praiseworthy and useful, provided they are not injurious to one's
health, or performed without the sanction of one's director. But I desire to
show my pious readers a means of practicing the virtue of patience, and of
imitating our meek and gentle Redeemer, which all may embrace, which contains
nothing extraordinary, nothing new, and from the use of which no one can be
suspected of seeking to gain applause for his sanctity.

In the first place, then, he who loves the virtue of
patience ought cheerfully to submit to those labours and sorrows with which we
are assured by faith it is the Divine will we should be afflicted, according to
those words of the Apostle: "For patience is necessary for you: that doing the
will of God, you may receive the promise."[12] Now, what God wishes us to
embrace is neither difficult for me to show or for my readers to learn. All the
commandments of our holy mother the Church must be kept with loving obedience
and patience, no matter how hard or difficult they may appear. What are these
commandments of the Church? The fasts of Lent, of the Ember days, and of certain
vigils. To keep these religiously as they ought to be kept, will require a great
amount of patience. Now, suppose a person on a fast-day sits down to a well
spread dinner-table, or in the single meal that he is allowed eats as much as he
would at any two meals on an ordinary day, or anticipates the time for his
collation, or eats more than he is allowed, such a person will certainly neither
hunger nor thirst, nor will his patience produce fruit. But if he firmly
resolves not to take food before the appointed time, unless sickness or some
other necessity obliges him, and to take food that is coarse and common and
suitable to a time of penance, and does not exceed what he usually takes at a
single meal, but gives to the poor all that he would eat if it were not a fast
day, as St. Leo advises: "Let the poor be fed by what those that fast abstain
from; "and elsewhere," Let us feel hunger for a little time, dearly beloved, and
for a short while let us diminish what we want for our own comfort, in order to
be of service to the poor;" and if at eventide he allows the collation to be
nothing more than a collation; in such a case undoubtedly patience will be
necessary to bear our hunger and thirst, and thus by fasting we shall imitate as
far as we are able the patience of Christ, and shall be nailed in part at least
to the Cross with Him. But some one may object, all these things are not
absolutely necessary. I grant it; but they are necessary if we desire to
practice the virtue of patience, or become like our suffering Redeemer. Again,
our holy Mother the Church orders ecclesiastics and religious to recite or sing
the canonical hours. Now, we shall require all the assistance which the virtue
of patience can give us, if this sacred reading and prayer is to be performed in
the manner in which it ought to be, as there are few who have not enough to do
to keep themselves free from distractions during prayer. Many hurry through
their prayers as quickly as possible, as though they were undertaking a very
laborious duty, and wished to free themselves from the burden in the shortest
possible time, and then they say their Office, not standing up or kneeling down,
but sitting or walking about, just as if the fatigue of prayer would be lessened
by sitting or lightened by walking. I am speaking of those who say their Office
in private, not of those who sing it in choir. Again, in order not to break into
their sleep, many recite during the day that part of the Office which the Church
has ordered to be said during the night. I say nothing of the attention and the
elevation of mind that is required whilst God is invoked in prayer, because many
think of what they sing or read less than of anything else. Indeed it is
surprising that many more do not see how necessary the virtue of patience is to
take away the repugnance we feel to spend a long time in prayer, to rise so as
to say the canonical hours at the proper time, to bear the fatigue of standing
or of kneeling, to prevent our thoughts from wandering, and to keep them fixed
on the one thing we are engaged in. Let my readers listen to an account of the
devotion with which St. Francis of Assisi recited his Breviary, and they will
then learn that the Divine Office cannot be said without the exercise of the
greatest patience. In his Life of St. Francis, St. Bonaventure speaks thus:
"This holy man was wont to recite the Divine Office with no less fear than
devotion towards God, and although he suffered great pains in his eyes, stomach,
spleen, and liver, he would neither lean against any wall or partition whilst he
sang, but standing erect, without his hood, he kept his eyes fixed, and had the
appearance of a person in a swoon. If he was on a journey he would keep to his
regular time, and recite the Divine Office in the usual manner, no matter if a
violent rain was falling. He thought himself guilty of a serious fault, if
during its recital he allowed his mind to be occupied with vain thoughts, and as
often as this happened he hastened to confession to make atonement for it. He
recited the Psalms with such attention of mind as if he had God present before
him, and whenever the Name of the Lord occurred he would smack his lips from the
sweetness which the pronunciation of that Name had left behind it." As soon as
any one endeavours to recite the Divine Office in this manner, and to rise at
night to recite his Matins, Lauds, and Prime, he will learn by experience that
labour and patience are necessary for the due performance of this duty. There
are many other things which the Church, guided by the Holy Scriptures, lays down
for us as the will of God, and for the due fulfillment of these also we require
the virtue of patience; such as to give to the poor from our superfluity, to
pardon those that injure us, to make satisfaction to those whom we have injured,
to confess our sins at least once a year, and to receive the blessed Eucharist,
which requires no small preparation. All this demands patience, but by way of
example I will explain a few more things at greater length.

Everything which either devils or men do to afflict us is
another indication of the Divine will, and another call for the exercise of our
patience. When bad men and evil spirits try us, their object is to injure not to
benefit us. Still God, without Whom they can do nothing, would not allow any
storm to break upon us, unless He judged it to be useful. Consequently every
affliction may be regarded as coming from the hand of God, and should therefore
be borne with patience and cheerfulness. Holy and upright Job knew that the
misfortunes with which he was stricken, and which deprived him in one day of all
his riches, of all his sons, and then of his bodily health, proceeded from the
hatred of the devil, yet he exclaimed: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken
away, blessed be the Name of the Lord,"[13] because he knew that his calamities
could only happen by the will of God. I do not say this because I think that
when any one is persecuted either by his fellow creatures or by the devil, he
should not, or ought not to do his best to recover his losses, to consult a
physician if unwell, or to defend himself and his property, but I merely give
this advice, not to bear any revenge against evil men, not to return evil for
evil, but to bear misfortune with patience because our God wishes us to do so,
and by fulfilling His will we shall receive the promise.

The last thing I wish to observe is this. We must all
strive to be intimately convinced that everything which happens by chance or
accident, as a great drought, too much rain, pestilence, famine, and the like,
does not happen without the special Providence and will of God, and consequently
we should not complain of the elements, or of God Himself, but should- regard
evils of this kind as a scourge with which God punishes us for our sins, and
bowing ourselves beneath His Almighty hand, bear everything in humility and
patience. God will thus be appeased. He will scatter His benedictions upon us.
He will chastise us as His sons with a fatherly love, and will not deprive us of
the kingdom of heaven. We may learn what is the reward of patience from an
example which St. Gregory adduces. In the thirty-fifth homily on the Gospels, he
says that a certain man Stephen was so patient as to consider those that
oppressed him his greatest friends; he returned thanks for insults; he looked
upon misfortunes as gains; he counted his enemies in the number of his
well-wishers and benefactors. The world considered him as a fool and madman, but
he turned no deaf ear to the words of the Apostle of Christ; "If any man among
you seem to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be
wise."[14] And St. Gregory adds that when he was dying many angels were seen
assisting round his couch, who carried his soul straight to heaven, and the holy
Doctor did not hesitate to rank Stephen amongst the martyrs on account of his
extraordinary patience.

CHAPTER XI: The fourth fruit
to be drawn from the consideration of the fifth Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

There remains one fruit more, and that the sweetest of all,
to be gathered from the consideration of this word. St. Austin, in his
explanation of the word "I thirst," which is to be found in his treatise on the
sixty-eighth Psalm, says that it shows not only the desire which Christ had for
drink, but still more the desire with which He was inflamed that His enemies
should believe in Him and be saved. We may advance a step further than St.
Austin, and say that Christ thirsted for the glory of God and the salvation of
men, and we ought to thirst for the glory of God, for the honour of Christ, for
our own salvation, and the salvation of our brethren. We cannot doubt that
Christ thirsted for the glory of His Father, and the salvation of souls, for all
His works, all His preaching, all His sufferings, all His miracles proclaimed
it. We must consider what we have to do not to show ourselves ungrateful to such
a Benefactor, and what means we must take to become so inflamed as really to
thirst for the glory of that God Who "so loved the world as to give His
only-begotten Son;[1] and fervently and ardently thirst for the honour of
Christ, Who "loved us, and delivered Himself for us an oblation and a sacrifice
to God for an odour of sweetness,"[2] and so feelingly compassionate our
brethren as zealously to desire their salvation. Still the most necessary thing
for ourselves is so cordially and earnestly to long for our own salvation, that
this desire should compel us, according to our strength, to think and speak and
do everything that can help us to save our souls. If we care nothing for the
honour of God, or the glory of Christ, and feel no anxiety for our own salvation
or that of others, it follows that God will be deprived of the honour which is
His due, that Christ will lose the glory which is His own, that our neighbour
will not reach Heaven, and that we ourselves shall perish miserably for
eternity. And on this account I am often filled with astonishment when I reflect
that we all know how sincerely Christ thirsted for our salvation, and we, who
believe Christ to be the Wisdom of the living God, are not moved to imitate His
example in a matter so intimately connected with ourselves. Nor am I less
astonished to see men hunt after worldly goods with such avidity, as though
there were no Heaven, and so little trouble themselves about their salvation,
that, far from thirsting for it, they scarcely give it a passing thought, as
though it were a trivial matter of light importance. Moreover temporal goods,
which are not unmixed pleasures, but are accompanied with many misfortunes, are
sought after with earnestness and anxiety; but eternal happiness, which is an
unalloyed pleasure, is cared for so little, longed for so unconcernedly, as
though it possessed no advantage whatever. Enlighten, O Lord, the eyes of my
soul, that I may find the cause of such a hurtful
indifference!

Love produces desire, and desire, when it is excessive, is
called a thirst. Now who is there that cannot love his own eternal happiness,
particularly when that happiness is free from everything that can mar it? And if
so great a prize cannot but be loved, why cannot it be ardently desired, eagerly
sought after, and with all our strength thirsted for ? Perhaps the reason is
that our salvation is not a matter that falls under the senses, we have never
had any experience of what it is like, as we have had in matters that regard the
body, and so we are solicitous for the latter, and coldly indifferent to the
former. But if such is the case, why did David, who was a mortal man like
ourselves, so eagerly long for the vision of God, and the happiness of heaven
consists in the vision of God, as to cry out: "As the hart panteth after the
fountains of water, so my soul panteth after Thee, O God. My soul hath thirsted
after the strong living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of
God?"[3] David is not the only one in this vale of tears who has desired with
such a burning desire the sight of the vision of God. There have been several
others also, who were distinguished by their holiness, by whom the things of
this world were regarded as mean and insipid, and to whom the thought and the
remembrance of God were alone agreeable and most charming. The reason then why
we do not thirst for our eternal happiness is not because heaven is invisible,
but because we do not think of what is before us with attention, with assiduity,
with faith. And the reason why we do not regard heavenly things as we ought is
that we are not spiritual, but sensual men; "The sensual man perceiveth not
those things that are of the Spirit of God."[4] Wherefore, my soul, if you
desire for your own salvation, and that of your neighbour, if you have at heart
the honour of God and the glory of Christ, listen to the words of the blessed
Apostle St. James: "If any of you want wisdom, let him ask of God, Who giveth to
all men abundantly, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him."[5] This
sublime wisdom is not to be acquired in the schools of this World, but in the
school of the Holy Spirit of God, Who changes the sensual man into the spiritual
one. But it is not enough to ask for this wisdom once only and with coldness,
but to demand it with much groaning from our heavenly Father. For if a father
according to the flesh cannot refuse his son when he asks for bread, "how much
more will your Father from heaven give the Good Spirit to them that ask
Him."[6]

CHAPTER XII: The literal
explanation of the sixth Word, "It is consummated.

The sixth word spoken by our Lord on the Cross is mentioned
by St. John as being in a manner joined with the fifth word. For as soon as our
Lord had said, "I thirst," and had tasted the vinegar which was offered Him, St.
John adds: "Jesus therefore when He had tasted the vinegar, said: It is
consummated."[1] And indeed nothing can be added to the simple words, "It is
consummated," except that the work of the Passion was now perfected and
completed. God the Father had imposed two duties on His Son: the first to preach
the Gospel; the other to suffer for mankind. Of the first Christ had already
said, "I have glorified Thee on earth: I have finished the work which Thou
gavest Me to do."[2] Our Lord spoke these words after He had concluded the long
and farewell address to His disciples at the Last Supper. Then He had
accomplished the first work which His Heavenly Father had imposed upon Him. The
second task, of drinking the bitter cup of His chalice, remained. He had alluded
to this when He asked the two sons of Zebedee, "can you drink the chalice that I
shall drink?"[3] and again, "Father, if Thou wilt, remove this chalice from
Me;"[4] and elsewhere, "The chalice which My Father hath given Me, shall I not
drink it?"[5] Of this task, Christ at the point of death could now exclaim, "It
is consummated, for I have drained the chalice of suffering to the dregs:
nothing now remains for Me but to die." And bowing His head He gave up the
ghost!"[6]

But as neither our Lord nor St. John, who were both concise
in what they said, have explained what was consummated, we have the opportunity
of applying the word with great reason and advantage to several mysteries. St.
Augustine, in his commentary on this passage, refers the word to the fulfillment
of all the prophecies that had reference to our Lord. "Afterwards Jesus knowing
that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled,
said, I thirst," and, "when He had taken the vinegar, said, It is
consummated,"[7] which means that what remained to be accomplished has been
accomplished, and so we may conclude that our Lord wished to show that
everything which had been foretold by the prophets concerning His Life and Death
had been brought to pass and fulfilled. Indeed, all the predictions had been
verified. His Conception: "Behold, a Virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son."[8]
His Nativity at Bethlehem: "And thou, Bethlehem Ephrata, art a little one among
the thousands of Juda; out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be the
ruler in Israel."[9] The apparition of a new star: "A star shall rise out of
Jacob."[10] The adoration of the Kings: "The Kings of Tharsis and the islands
shall offer presents, the Kings of the Arabians and of Saba shall bring
gifts."[11] The preaching of the Gospel; "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
because the Lord hath anointed Me; He hath sent Me to preach to the meek, to
heal the contrite of heart, and to preach a release to the captives, and
deliverance to them that are shut up."[12] His miracles: "God Himself will come
and will save you. Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of
the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the
tongue of the dumb shall be free."[13] His sitting upon the ass; "Behold thy
King will come to thee, the Just and Saviour: He is poor and riding upon an ass,
and upon a colt the foal of an ass."[14] And the whole Passion had been
graphically foretold by David in the Psalms, by Isaias, Jeremias, Zacharias, and
others. This is the meaning of what our Lord said when He was about to set out
for His Passion: "Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and all things shall be
accomplished which were written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man."[15]
Of those things therefore which had to be accomplished, He now says, "It is
consummated;" everything is finished, so that what the prophets foretold is now
found to be true.

In the second place, St. John Chrysostom says that the
word, "It is consummated," shows that the power which had been given to men and
devils over the person of Christ has been taken away from them by the Death of
Christ. When our Lord said to the Chief Priests and masters of the Temple, "This
is your hour and the power of darkness,[16] He alluded to this power. The whole
period of time, then during which, by the permission of God, the wicked had
power over Christ, was brought to a close when He exclaimed, "It is
consummated," for then the peregrination of the Son of God amongst men, which
Baruch had foretold, came to an end: "This is our God, and there shall no other
be accounted of in comparison of Him. He found out all the way of knowledge, and
gave it to Jacob His servant, and to Israel His beloved. Afterwards He was seen
upon earth, and conversed with men."[17] And together with His pilgrimage that
condition of His mortal life was ended, according to which He hungered and
thirsted, He slept and was fatigued, was subject to affronts and scourgings, to
wounds and to death. And so when Christ on the Cross exclaimed, "It is
consummated, and bowing His head He gave up the ghost," He ended the journey of
which He had said, "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world,
again I leave the world and I go to the Father."[18] That laborious pilgrimage
was ended of which Jeremias had said, "O expectation of Israel, the Saviour
thereof in time of trouble: why wilt Thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a
wayfaring man turning in to lodge."[19] The subjection of His Human Nature to
death was ended, the power of His enemies over Himself was
ended.

In the third place was ended the greatest of all
sacrifices, in comparison to which real and true Sacrifice all the sacrifices of
the Old Law were regarded as mere shadows and figures. St. Leo says, "Thou hast
drawn all things to Thyself, O Lord, for when the veil of the Temple was rent,
the Holy of Holies departed from unworthy priests: figures became truths:
prophecies became manifest: the Law became the Gospel." And a little later, "By
the cessation of a variety of sacrifices in which victims were offered, the one
oblation of thy Body and Blood makes up for the differences of the victims."[20]
For in this one Sacrifice of Christ, the priest is the God-Man, the altar is the
Cross, the victim is the Lamb of God, the fire for the holocaust is charity, the
fruit of the sacrifice is the redemption of the world. The priest, I say, was
the God-Man, than Whom no one is greater: "Thou art a priest for ever according
to the order of Melchisedech;"[21] and rightly according to the order of
Melchisedech, because we read in Scripture that Melchisedech was without father
or mother or genealogy, and Christ was without a father on earth, without a
mother in Heaven, and without genealogy, for "who shall declare His
generation?[22] "from the womb before the day-star I begot Thee;"[23] "and His
going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity."[24] The altar was
the Cross. And as previous to the time when Christ suffered upon it, it was the
sign of the greatest ignominy, so now has it become dignified and ennobled, and
on the Last Day shall appear in the heaven more brilliant than the sun. The
Church applies to the Cross the words of the Evangelist: "Then shall appear the
sign of the Son of Man in Heaven,"[25] for she sings: "This sign of the Cross
shall appear in Heaven when the Lord shall come to judge." St. John Chrysostom
confirms this opinion, and observes that when "the sun shall be darkened, and
the moon shall not give her light,"[26] the Cross shall be seen more brilliant
than the sun in its mid-day splendour. The victim was the Lamb of God, all
innocent and immaculate, of whom Isaias said, "He shall be led as a sheep to the
slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before His shearer, and He shall not open
His mouth,"[27] and of Whom His Precursor exclaimed, "Behold the Lamb of God,
behold Him Who taketh away the sin of the world,"[28] and St. Peter: "Knowing
that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as gold or silver, but with
the precious Blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled."[29] He is
called also in the Apocalypse, "The Lamb which was slain from the beginning of
the world,"[30] because the merit of His Sacrifice was foreseen by God, and was
of advantage to those who lived before the coming of Christ. The fire which
consumes the holocaust, and completes the Sacrifice, is the immense love which,
as in a heated furnace, burnt in the Heart of the Son of God, and which the many
waters of His Passion could not extinguish. Lastly, the fruit of the Sacrifice
was the atonement for the sins of all the children of Adam, or in other words,
the reconciliation of the whole world with God. St. John in his first Epistle
says, "He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for
those of the whole world,"[31] and this is only another way of expressing the
idea of St. John Baptist: "Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him Who taketh away
the sin of the world."[32] One difficulty here arises. How could Christ be at
one and the same time priest and victim, since it is the duty of the priest to
slay the victim? Now, Christ did not slay Himself, nor could He do so, for if He
had He would have committed a sacrilege and not have offered a sacrifice. It is
true Christ did not slay Himself, still He offered a real sacrifice, because He
willingly and cheerfully offered Himself to death for the glory of God and the
salvation of men. For neither could the soldiers have apprehended Him, nor the
nails have transfixed His hands and feet, nor death, although He was fastened to
the Cross, have had any power over Him, unless He Himself had wished it.
Consequently, with great truth did Isaias say, "He was offered, because it was
His own will;"[33] and our Lord: "I lay down My life; no man taketh it away from
Me, but I lay it down of Myself;"[34] and more clearly still St. Paul: "Christ
also hath loved us, and hath delivered Himself for us, an oblation and a
sacrifice to God for an odour of sweetness."[35] In a wonderful manner therefore
was it arranged that all the evil, all the sin, all the crime committed in
putting Christ to death was committed by Judas and the Jews, by Pilate and the
soldiers. These offered no sacrifice, but were guilty of sacrilege, and deserve
to be called, not priests, but sacrilegious wretches. And all the virtue, all
the holiness, all the dutifulness displayed in the Passion, were the virtue and
the holiness and the dutifulness of Christ, Who offered Himself a victim to God
by patiently enduring death, even the death of the Cross, in order to appease
the anger of His Father, to reconcile mankind to God, to make satisfaction to
the Divine justice, and to save the fallen race of Adam. St. Leo beautifully
expresses this thought in a few words: "He allowed the impure hands of wretches
to be turned against Himself, and they became cooperators with the Redeemer at
the time they were committing a heinous sin."

In the fourth place, by the Death of Christ the mighty
struggle between Himself and the prince of the world was brought to a close. In
alluding to this struggle, our Lord made use of these words: "Now this is the
judgment of the world. Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if
I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to Myself."[36] This
struggle was a judicial, not a military one; it was a struggle between rival
suitors, not between rival armies. Satan disputed with Christ the possession of
the world, the dominion over mankind. For a long time the devil had unlawfully
thrust himself into possession, because he had overcome the first man, and had
made him and all his descendants his slaves. For this reason St. Paul calls the
devils, "the principalities and powers, the rulers of the world of this
darkness."[37] And as we said a little before, even Christ calls the devil "the
prince of this world." Now the devil did not wish merely to be the prince, but
even the god of this world, and so the Psalmist exclaims: "For all the gods of
the Gentiles are devils, but the Lord made the heavens."[38] Satan was adored in
the idols of the Gentiles, and was worshipped in their sacrifices of lambs and
calves. On the other side, the Son of God, as the true and lawful heir of the
universe, demanded the principality of this world for Himself. This was the
contest which was decided on the Cross, and judgment was pronounced in favour of
our Lord Jesus Christ, because on the Cross He fully atoned for the sins of the
first man and of all His children. For the obedience shown to the Eternal Father
by His Son was greater than the disobedience of a servant to his master, and the
humility with which the Son of God died on the Cross redounded more to the
honour of the Father than the pride of a servant tended to His injury. So God by
the merits of His Son was reconciled to mankind, and mankind was snatched from
the power of the devil, and "translated into the kingdom of the Son of His
love."[39]

There is another reason which St. Leo adduces, and we will
give it in his own words. "If our proud and cruel enemy could have known the
plan which the mercy of God had adopted, he would have restrained the passions
of the Jews, and not have goaded them on by unjust hatred, in order that he
might lose his power over all his captives by fruitlessly attacking the liberty
of One Who owed him nothing." This is an exceedingly weighty reason. For it is
just that the devil should lose his authority over all those who by sin had
become his slaves, because he had dared to lay his hands on Christ, Who was not
his slave, Who had never sinned, and Whom he nevertheless persecuted even unto
death. Now, if such is the state of the case, if the battle is over, if the Son
of God has gained the victory, and if "He will have all men to be saved,"[40]
how is it that so many are in the power of the devil in this life, and suffer
the torments of hell in the next? I answer in one word: They wish it. Christ
came victorious out of the contest, after bestowing two unspeakable favours on
the human race, First that of opening to the just the gates of Heaven, which had
been closed from the fall of Adam to that day, and on the day of His victory He
said to the thief who had been justified by the merits of His Blood, through
faith, hope, and charity, "This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise,"[41] and
the Church in her exultation cries out, "Thou having overcome the sting of
death, hast opened to believers the kingdom of Heaven." The second, of
instituting the Sacraments which have the power of remitting sin and of
conferring grace. He sends the preachers of His Word to all parts of the world
to proclaim, "He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved." And so our
victorious Lord has opened a way to all to attain the glorious liberty of the
sons of God, and if there are any who are unwilling to enter on this way, they
perish by their own fault, and not by the want of power or the want of will of
their Redeemer.

In the fifth place, the word, "It is consummated," may
rightly be applied to the completion of the building, that is, the Church.
Christ our Master uses this very word in reference to a building: "Hic homo
coepit aedificare et non potuit consummare"--"This man began to build and was
not able to finish."[43] The Fathers teach that the foundation of the Church was
laid when Christ was baptized, and the building completed when He died.
Epiphanius in his third book against heretics, and St. Augustine in the last
book of the City of God, show that Eve, who was built from a rib of Adam whilst
he was asleep, typifies the Church, which was built from the Side of Christ
whilst He slept in Death. And they remark that not without reason does the book
of Genesis use the word built, not formed. St. Augustine[44] proves that the
building of the Church commenced with the baptism of Christ, from the words of
the Psalmist: "And He shall rule from sea to sea, and from the river unto the
ends of the earth."[45] The kingdom of Christ, which is the Church, began with
the baptism He received at the hands of St. John, by which He consecrated the
waters and instituted that Sacrament which is the gate of the Church, and when
the voice of His Father was clearly heard in the heavens: "This is My beloved
Son, in Whom I am well pleased."[46] From that moment our Lord began to preach
and to gather disciples, who were the first children of the Church. And all the
Sacraments derive their efficacy from the Passion of Christ, although our Lord's
Side was opened after His Death, and Blood and water, which typify the two chief
Sacraments of the Church, flowed forth. The flowing of Blood and water from the
Side of Christ after Death was a sign of the Sacraments, not their institution.
We may conclude then that the building of the Church was completed when Christ
said, "It is consummated," because nothing then remained but death, which
immediately followed, and consummated the price of our
redemption.

CHAPTER XIII: The first fruit to be drawn from the
consideration of the sixth Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

Whoever attentively ponders on the sixth word must derive
many advantages from his reflections, St. Augustine draws a most useful lesson
from the fact that the word "It is consummated" shows the fulfillment of all
prophecies that had reference to our Lord. For as we are certain from what has
happened that the prophecies regarding our Lord were true, so ought we to be
equally certain that other things which the same Prophets foretold, and which
have not yet come to pass are equally true. The Prophets spoke not of their own
will, but were inspired by the Holy Ghost, and because the Holy Ghost is God,
Who cannot either deceive or mislead, we should be most confident that
everything which they foretold will come to pass, if it has not done so already.
"For as heretofore," says St. Augustine, "everything has been accomplished, so
what has to be fulfilled will assuredly happen. Let us then stand in awe of the
Day of Judgment, for the Lord will come. He Who came as a lowly Babe will come
as a mighty God." We have more reasons than the saints of old for never wavering
in our faith, or in our belief of what is to come. Those who lived before the
coming of Christ were obliged to believe, without proof, many things for which
we have abundant testimony, and from what has been fulfilled we may easily
deduce that the remaining prophecies will be accomplished. The contemporaries of
Noe heard of the universal Deluge, not only from the lips of the prophet of God,
but from his conduct in working so diligently at the construction of the Ark;
still they were hard to convince, as never before had there been a Deluge, or
anything similar to it, and consequently the Divine wrath overtook them
unawares. As we know that what Noe foretold came to pass, we should have no
difficulty in believing that the world and everything we now esteem so much will
one day be destroyed by fire. Still, there are very few who have such a lively
faith in this as to detach themselves from perishable things, and fix their
hearts on the joys above, which are real and everlasting.

The terrors of the Last Day have been foretold by Christ
Himself, so that those are altogether inexcusable w ho cannot be induced to
believe that because some prophecies have been fulfilled, therefore others will
be. These are the words of Christ: "And as in the days of Noe, so shall also the
coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the Flood, they were
eating and drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage, even till that day in
which Noe entered into the ark. And they knew not till the Flood came and took
them all away; so also shall the coming of the Son of Man be. Watch ye,
therefore, because you know not at what hour your Lord will come."[1] And St.
Peter says: "The day of the Lord shall come as a thief, in which the heavens
shall pass away with great violence, and the elements shall be melted with heat,
and the earth, and the works which are in it shall be burnt up."[2] But some may
argue, all these things are a long way off. Let it be that they are a long way
off, and if they are, the day of death is certainly not far off: its hour is
very uncertain, and yet it is certain that in the particular judgment which is
close at hand, an account will have to be rendered of every idle word. And if of
every idle word what of sinful words, of blasphemies which are so common ? And
if an account of every word is to be rendered, what of actions, of thefts,
adulteries, frauds, murders, injustice, and other mortal sins? Therefore the
fulfillment of some prophecies will render us all the more blameworthy if we do
not believe that the other prophecies will be accomplished. Nor is it enough
merely to believe, unless our faith efficaciously moves our will to do or to
avoid what our understanding teaches us should be done or avoided. If an
architect were to give it as his opinion that a house was about to fall, and the
inhabitants were to acknowledge that they believed the architect's words, but
still would not abandon the house, and were buried in its ruins, what would
people say of such faith? They would say with the Apostle: "They profess that
they know God, but in their works they deny Him."[3] Or what would be said if a
doctor were to order a patient not to drink wine, and the patient were to own
that the advice was good, but were to continue to drink wine, and be angry if it
was not given him? Should we not say that such a patient was mad and had no
confidence in his physician? Would that there were not so many Christians who
profess to believe in the judgments of God and other things, and by their
conduct give a denial to their words!

CHAPTER XIV. The second fruit
to be drawn from the consideration of the sixth Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

Another advantage may be derived from the second
interpretation which we gave of the word "It is consummated." With St. John
Chrysostom, we said that by His Death Christ finished His laborious sojourn
amongst us. No one can deny but that His mortal life was beyond measure bitter,
but its very bitterness was compensated for by its shortness, by its fruit, by
its glory, and its honour. It lasted thirty-three years. What is a labour of
thirty-three years compared to an eternity of rest? Our Lord laboured in hunger
and thirst, in the midst of many griefs, of insults without number, of blows, of
wounds, of death itself. But now He drinks from the fount of joys, and His joy
shall last for ever. Again, He was humbled, and for a short time was "the
reproach of men and the outcast of the people;"[1] but "God hath exalted Him,
and hath given Him a Name which is above all names, that in the Name of Jesus
every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the
earth."[2] On the other hand, the perfidious Jews for an hour exulted over
Christ in His sufferings; Judas for an hour enjoyed the price of his avarice, a
few pieces of silver; Pilate for an hour gloried because he had not lost the
friendship of Tiberius, and had regained that of Herod. But for nearly two
thousand years they have all been suffering the torments of hell and their cries
of despair will be heard for ever and for ever. From their misery all the
servants of the Cross may learn how good and profitable a thing it is to be
humble, to be meek, to be patient, to carry their cross in this present life, to
follow Christ as their guide, and by no means to envy those who appear to be
happy in this world. The lives of Christ and of His Apostles and Martyrs are a
true commentary on the words of the Master of masters. "Blessed are the poor,
blessed are the meek, blessed are they that mourn; blessed are they that suffer
persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."[3] And on
the other hand, "Wo to you who are rich, for you have your consolation. Wo to
you that are filled, for you shall hunger. Wo to you that now laugh, for you
shall mourn and weep."[4]

Although neither the words nor the life and death of Christ
are understood or followed by the world, still whoever wishes to leave the
bustle of life and enter into his heart and seriously meditate and say to
himself, "I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me,"[5] and importunes His
Divine Master with humble prayer and groaning of spirit, will without difficulty
understand all truth, and the truth shall free him from all errors, and what
before appeared impossible will become easy.

CHAPTER XV: The third fruit to
be drawn from the consideration of the sixth Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

The third fruit to be gathered from the consideration of
the sixth word is, that we should learn to become spiritual priests, "to offer
up to God spiritual sacrifices,"[1] as St. Peter tells us, or as St. Paul
advises us, "to present" our "bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto
God," our "reasonable service."[2] For if this word "It is consummated" shows us
that the Sacrifice of our High Priest has been accomplished on the Cross, it is
just and proper that the disciples of a crucified God, who are desirous, as far
as they can, of imitating their Master, should offer themselves as a sacrifice
to God according to their weakness and their poverty. Indeed, St. Peter says
that all Christians are priests, not strictly so indeed as those who are
ordained by bishops in the Holy Roman Church for offering the Sacrifice of the
Body and Blood of Christ, but spiritual priests for offering spiritual victims,
not such victims as we read of in the Old Testament, sheep and oxen, turtles and
doves, or the Victim of the New Testament, the Body of Christ in the Blessed
Eucharist, but mystical victims which can be offered by all, as prayer and
praise and good works and fasts and almsdeeds, as St. Paul says, "Let us offer
the sacrifice of praise always to God, that is to say, the fruit of lips
confessing to His Name."[3] In his Epistle to the Romans, the same Apostle most
distinctly tells us to offer to God the mystical sacrifice of our bodies after
the sacrifices of the Old Law, which were regulated by four decrees. The first
was, that the victim should be something consecrated to God, which it would be
unlawful to turn to any profane use. The second, that the victim should be a
living creature, as a sheep, a goat, or a calf. The third, that it should be
holy, that is, clean; for the Jews considered some animals clean, others
unclean. Sheep, oxen, goats, turtles, sparrows, and doves were clean; whereas
the horse, the lion, the fox, the hawk, the raven, and others were unclean. The
fourth, that the victim should be burnt, and should send forth an odour of
sweetness. All these things the Apostle enumerates. "I beseech you therefore,
brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present yourselves a living sacrifice,
holy, pleasing unto God, your reasonable service."[4] As I understand the
Apostle he does not exhort us to offer a sacrifice strictly speaking, as though
he wished our bodies to be killed and burnt, like the bodies of sheep When
offered in sacrifice, but to offer a mystical and reason able sacrifice, a
sacrifice that is similar but not the same, a spiritual and not a corporal one.
The Apostle therefore exhorts us to the imitation of Christ inasmuch as He
offered on the Cross for our advantage the Sacrifice of His Body by a true and
real Death, so we, for His honour, should offer our bodies as a living, a holy
and perfect victim, a victim which is pleasing to God, and which in a spiritual
manner is slain and burnt.

We will now give a few words of explanation concerning the
four decrees which regulated the Jewish sacrifices. In the first place, our
bodies should be victims consecrated to God, which we should use for the honour
of God. For we must not look upon our bodies as our own property, but as the
property of God, to Whom we were consecrated in Baptism, and Who has bought us
at a great price, as the Apostle tells the Corinthians. Nor ought we to be
merely victims, but victims living by the life of grace and of the Holy Spirit.
For those who are dead by sin are not victims of God, but of the devil, who
kills our souls and rejoices in their destruction. Our God, who always was and
is the fountain of life, will not have offered to Him fetid carcases which are
fit for nothing but to be thrown to the beasts. In the second place, we must
take great care to preserve this life of our souls so that we may offer our
"reasonable service." Nor is it enough for the victim to be living. It must also
be holy. "A living" and "holy sacrifice," says St. Paul. The oblation of clean
victims was a holy sacrifice. As we have said before, some quadrupeds were
clean, as sheep, goats, and oxen, and some birds were clean, as turtles,
sparrows, and doves. The former class of animals typify the active life, the
latter the contemplative. Consequently, if those who lead an active life amongst
the faithful desire to offer themselves as holy victims to God, they must
imitate the simplicity and meekness of a sheep, which knows not revenge; the
labours and seriousness of the ox, which seeks not repose, does not vainly run
hither and thither, but bears its burden and drags its plough and works
assiduously in the cultivation of the earth; and finally, the speed of the goat
in climbing mountains and its quickness in detecting objects from afar. They
must not rest satisfied with meekness only, or with undertaking certain duties.
They must lift up their hearts by frequent prayer and contemplate the things
which are above. For how can they perform their actions for the glory of God and
make them ascend like the incense of sacrifice before Him, if they seldom or
never think of God, seek Him not, and are not by means of meditation burning
with His love? The active life of a Christian should not be entirely separated
from the contemplative, just as the contemplative should not be entirely
separated from the active. Those who do not follow the example of oxen and sheep
and goats in continually and usefully labouring for their Master, but seek and
pursue their own temporal commodities, cannot offer to God a holy victim. They
resemble rather such ferocious and carnivorous beasts as wolves, dogs, bears,
kites, and ravens, which make a god of their belly, and follow in the tracks of
"that roaring lion" which "goeth about seeking whom he may devour."[5] Those
Christians who lead a contemplative life and desire to offer themselves as
living and holy victims to God must imitate the solitude of the turtle, the
purity of the dove, and the prudence of the sparrow. The solitude of the turtle
is chiefly applicable to monks and hermits, who have no communication with the
world and are wholly intent on the contemplation of God and singing His praises.
The purity and fecundity of the dove is necessary for bishops and priests, who
have intercourse with men and ought to bring forth and nourish spiritual
children, and it will be difficult for them to imitate such purity and
fruitfulness unless they frequently fly up to their heavenly country by
contemplation, and by charity condescend to succour the necessities of men.
There is a danger of their wholly abandoning themselves to contemplation and
being unproductive of spiritual children, or of becoming so engrossed in
external work as to be contaminated with earthly desires, and whilst they are
all anxiety to save the souls of others, may themselves--which God avert--become
castaways. The prudence of the sparrow is necessary both for contemplatives, and
also for those who devote themselves to the active duties of the ministry. There
are both hedge- sparrows and house-sparrows. Hedge-sparrows show the greatest
care in avoiding the nets and snares set for them, and house-sparrows, which
dwell near men, never become the friends of man, and with difficulty are
captured by men. So Christians, and especially priests and monks, must imitate
the prudence of the sparrow to avoid falling into the nets and snares set for
them by the devil, and when they treat with men, should do so solely for their
neighbours' advantage, should avoid all familiarity with them, especially with
women, should fly from idle conversations, should decline invitations, and
should not be present at plays and theatres.

The last decree regarding sacrifices was that the victim
should not only be living and holy but also pleasing, that is, should send forth
a most sweet odour, according to what the Scriptures say: "And the Lord smelled
a sweet savour,"[6] and "Christ delivered Himself for us, an oblation and a
sacrifice to God for an odour of sweetness."[7] It was necessary that the
victim, in order to send forth this odour so pleasing to God, should be both
killed and burnt. This takes place in the mystical and reasonable sacrifice of
which we are speaking, when the concupiscence of the flesh is completely brought
into subjection and burnt out by the fire of charity. Nothing more
efficaciously, quickly, and perfectly mortifies the concupiscence of the flesh
than a sincere love of God. For He is the King and Lord of all the affections of
our heart, and all our affections are ruled by Him and depend upon Him, whether
they be those of fear or hope, or desire or hatred, or anger, or any other
inquietude of mind. Now love yields to nothing except to a stronger love, and
consequently when Divine love has complete possession of the heart of man and
sets it wholly in flame, all carnal desires yield to it, and, being completely
subdued, occasion us no disquiet: and, therefore, ardent aspirations and fervent
prayers should ascend from our hearts like incense before the throne of God.
This is the sacrifice which God demands of us, and which the Apostle exhorts us
to be ever most ready to offer.

St. Paul uses a very strong argument to persuade us to it,
as it is of itself so hard and full of difficulty. His argument is expressed in
these words: "I beseech you, brethren, by the mercy of God that you present your
bodies a living sacrifice."[8] In the Greek text we find the word mercies used
instead of mercy. What and how many are the mercies of God by which the Apostle
beseeches us? In the first place there is creation, by which we were made
something whereas before we were nothing. Secondly, although Almighty God stood
in no need of our service, He has made us His servants, because He wishes us to
do something for which He can reward us. Thirdly, He made us to His image, and
rendered us capable of knowing Him and loving Him. Fourthly, He made us through
Christ His adopted children and coheirs of His Only-Begotten Son. Fifthly, He
has made us members of His Spouse, and of that Church of which He is the Head.
Lastly, He offered Himself on the Cross, "an oblation and a sacrifice to God for
an odour of sweetness,"[9] to redeem us from slavery and wash us from our
iniquities, "that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church not having
spot or wrinkle."[10] These are the mercies of God by which the Apostle
beseeches us, as if he would say: The Lord has showered so many graces upon you,
who have neither deserved them, nor asked for them, and should you think it a
hard matter to offer yourselves as living, holy, and reasonable victims to God?
Forsooth, far from being difficult, it should seem to any one who attentively
considers all the circumstances, light and easy and pleasant and agreeable, to
serve so good a God with our whole hearts throughout all time, and after the
example of Christ to offer ourselves wholly to Him as a victim, an oblation, and
a holocaust in the odour of sweetness.

CHAPTER XVI: The fourth fruit
to be drawn from the consideration of the sixth Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

A fourth fruit can be drawn from a fourth explanation of
the word "It is finished." For if it is true, as most certainly it is, that God
by the merits of Christ has withdrawn us from the servitude of the devil, and
placed us in the kingdom of His Beloved Son, let us inquire, and not desist from
our inquiry till we have found the reason, why so many men prefer the slavery of
the enemy of mankind to the service of Christ, our most kind Master, and choose
rather to burn for ever in the flames of hell with Satan, than reign most happy
in eternal glory with our Lord Jesus Christ. The only reason I can find is that
the service of Christ begins with the Cross. It is necessary to crucify the
flesh with its vices and concupiscences. This bitter draught, this chalice of
gall, naturally produces a nausea in frail man, and is often the sole reason why
he would rather be the slave of his passions than be the master of them by such
a remedy. A man without reason, indeed, or rather not a man but a beast, for a
man bereft of his reason is such, might be ruled by his desires and appetites:
but since man is endowed with reason, he certainly knows or ought to know that
he who is commanded to crucify his flesh with its vices and concupiscences
should insist on keeping this precept, particularly as he is assisted by God's
grace to do so, and that our Lord, like a wise physician, so prepares this
bitter potion that it may be drunk without difficulty. Moreover, if any one of
us individually was the first person to whom these words were addressed, "Take
up your cross and follow Me," we might have an excuse for hesitating and
mistrusting our own strength, and not daring to lay our hands on a cross which
we considered ourselves unable to carry. But since not only men but even
children of tender years have boldly taken up the Cross of Christ, have
patiently carried it, and have crucified their flesh with its vices and
concupiscences, why should we fear, why should we hesitate? St. Augustine was
vanquished by this argument, and at once mastered his carnal concupiscence which
for years he had regarded as unconquerable. He placed before the eyes of his
soul many men and women who had led chaste lives, and said to himself: "Why
cannot you do what so many of both sexes have done who trusted not in their own
strength, but in the Lord their God?" What has been said about the concupiscence
of the flesh, may be said with equal force about the concupiscence of the
eyes--which is avarice, and the pride of life. There is no vice which with God's
assistance cannot be overcome, and there is no reason to fear that God will
refuse to help us. St. Leo says: "Almighty God justly insists on our keeping His
commandments since He prevents us by His grace." Miserable and mad and foolish,
then, are those souls who prefer rather to carry five yoke of oxen under the
command of Satan, and with labour and sorrow be the slaves of their senses, and
at last be tortured for ever with their leader, the devil, in the flames of
hell, than to submit to the yoke of Christ, which is sweet and light, to find
rest for their souls in this life, and in the life to come an eternal crown with
their King in everlasting glory.

CHAPTER XVII: The fifth fruit
to be drawn from the consideration of the sixth Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

A fifth fruit may be gathered from this word, since we may
apply it to the building of the Church which was perfected on the Cross. The
Church was formed from the Side of Christ as He was expiring on the Cross, like
another Eve formed from the rib of another Adam. And this mystery should teach
us to love the Cross, to honour the Cross, and to be closely united to the
Cross. For who does not love his mother's birth place? All the faithful have an
extraordinary veneration for the holy house of Loreto, because it is the
birthplace of the Virgin Mother of God, and there in her virginal womb she
conceived Jesus Christ our Lord, as the Angel announced to St. Joseph: "For that
which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost."[1] So the Holy Roman Church,
mindful of the place of her nativity, has the Cross planted everywhere and
everywhere exhibited. We are taught to make it on ourselves; we see it in
churches and houses; she confers no Sacrament without the Cross, blesses nothing
without the sign of the cross; and we, the children of the Church, show our love
for the Cross when we patiently endure adversities for the love of our crucified
God. This is to glory in the Cross. This is to do what the Apostle did "when
they went from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were accounted
worthy to suffer reproach for the Name of Jesus."[2] St. Paul plainly gives us
to understand what he means by glorying in the Cross when he says: "We glory
also in tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience
trial, and trial hope, and hope confoundeth not, because the charity of God is
poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, Who is given to us."[3] And again
in his Epistle to the Galatians: "God forbid that I should glory, save in the
Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom the world is crucified to me and I to
the world."[4] This is indeed the triumph of the Cross, when the world with its
pomps and pleasures is dead to the Christian soul that loves Christ crucified,
and the soul is dead to the world by loving tribulations and contempt which the
world hates, and hating the pleasures of the flesh, and the empty applause of
men which the world loves. In this manner is the true servant of God rendered so
perfect that it may also be said of him: "It is finished."

ENDNOTES

1. St. Matt. i. 20.2. Acts v.
41.3. Rom. v. 3-5.4. Gal vi.
14.

CHAPTER XVIII: The
sixth fruit to be drawn from the consideration of the sixth Word spoken by
Christ upon the Cross.

The last fruit to be drawn from the consideration of this
word is to be gathered from the perseverance which our Lord exhibited on the
Cross. We are taught by this word, "It is finished," how our Lord so perfected
the work of His Passion from the beginning to the end that nothing was wanting
to it: "The works of God are perfect."[1] And as God the Father completed the
work of creation on the sixth day and rested on the seventh, so the Son of God
completed the work of our redemption on the sixth day and rested in the sleep of
death on the seventh. In vain did the Jews taunt Him, "If He be the King of
Israel let Him come down from the Cross and we will believe Him."[2] With more
truth does St. Bernard exclaim: "Because He is the King of Israel, He will not
desert the ensign of His royalty. He would not give us an excuse for failing in
perseverance, which alone is crowned: He would not make the tongues of preachers
dumb, nor the lips of those who console the weak mute, nor the words of those
void whose duty it is to say to every one, Do not abandon your cross, for
without doubt each individual soul would answer if it could: I have abandoned my
cross, because Christ first deserted His." Christ then persevered on His Cross
even unto His Death, in order so to perfect His work that nothing should be
wanting to it, and to leave us an example of perseverance in every way worthy of
our admiration. It is easy indeed to stay in places which are agreeable to us,
or to persevere in duties which are pleasant, but it is very difficult to remain
at one's post where there is much grief to be allayed, or to continue in an
occupation where there is much anxiety attached to it. But if we could
understand the reason which induced our Lord to persevere on the Cross, we
should be thoroughly convinced that we ought to bear our cross with constancy,
and if need be, to bear it with courage even unto death. If we fix our eyes on
the Cross alone we cannot but be filled with horror at the sight of such an
instrument of death. But if we fix our eyes on Him Who bids us carry the Cross,
and on the place whither the Cross will lead us, and on the fruit which the
Cross will produce in us, then instead of appearing full of difficulties and
obstacles, it will be easy and agreeable to persevere in carrying it, and even
to remain with constancy nailed to it.

Why then did Christ hang upon His Cross with such
perseverance even unto death without a sigh and without a murmur? The first
reason was the love He bore His Father: "The chalice which My Father hath given
Me, shall I not drink it?"[3] Christ loved His Father and the Father loved His
Only-Begotten Son, with an equally ineffable love. And when He saw the chalice
of suffering offered to Him by His all-good and all-loving Father in such a
manner that He could not but conclude it was presented to Him for the best of
purposes, we cannot wonder at His drinking it to the dregs with the utmost
readiness. The Father had made a marriage feast for His Son, and had given Him
for His Spouse the Church--disfigured and deformed indeed, but which He was
lovingly to cleanse in the bath of His Precious Blood and render beautiful, "not
having spot nor wrinkle."[4] Christ on His side dearly loved the Spouse given
Him by His Father, and hesitated not to pour out His Blood to render her fair
and comely. Now if Jacob toiled for seven years in feeding the flocks of Laban,
suffered from heat and cold and want of sleep in order to marry Rachel, and if
these seven years of labour passed so quickly that "they seemed but a few days
because of the greatness of his love,"[5] and a second seven years seemed
equally as short, we cannot be surprised that the Son of God desired to hang on
the Cross for three hours for His Spouse, the Church, who was to be the mother
of so many thousands of saints and the parent of so many children of God.
Moreover, in drinking the bitter chalice of His Passion, Christ was influenced
not only by His love for His Father and His Spouse, but also by the exalted
glory and the boundless and never-ending happiness He was to secure by means of
His Cross: "He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death
of the Cross. For which cause God also hath exalted Him, and hath given Him a
Name which is above all names: that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow,
of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and that every
tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the
Father."[6]

To the example which Christ has set us, let us add also the
examples which the Apostles hold out for our imitation. St. Paul in his Epistle
to the Romans, after enumerating his own crosses and those of his fellow-
labourers, asks: "Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall
tribulation? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or danger? or persecution? or
the sword? As it is written: For Thy sake we are put to death all the day long.
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." And he answers his own questions.
"But in all these things we overcome because of Him that hath loved us."[7] We
must not regard the suffering which crosses entail if we wish to persevere
unflinchingly in bearing them, but rather encourage ourselves by the love of
that God Who so loved us as to give His only Son for our ransom, or even keep
our eyes fixed on that Son of God Who loved us and "gave Himself for us."[8] In
his Epistle to the Corinthians the same Apostle says: "I am filled with comfort.
I exceedingly abound with joy in all our tribulations."[9] Whence arose this
consolation and this joy which rendered him, so to speak, impassible in every
affliction? He supplies us with the answer. "For that which is at present
momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us above measure exceedingly
an eternal weight of glory."[10] Thus the contemplation of the crown which
awaited him, and the thought of which he ever kept before him, rendered all the
trials of this life momentary and trivial. "What persecution," cries out St.
Cyprian, "can prevail against such thoughts as these? what torments can overcome
such a vision?[11] As a second model we will take the conduct of St. Andrew, who
looked upon the cross, on which he was to hang for two days, not as a gibbet,
but embraced it as a friend, and when the spectators of his execution wished to
take him down, he would by no means consent to it, as he desired to remain
fastened to his cross even to death. And this is not the action of a crazy or
foolish person, but of an enlightened Apostle and of a man filled with the Holy
Ghost.

All Christians can learn from the example of Christ and His
Apostles how to conduct themselves when they cannot descend from their cross,
that is, when they cannot free themselves from some particular affliction or
suffering without sin. In the first place the life of each religious who is
bound by the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, is compared to a
martyrdom from which he must not shrink. Again, if a husband is wedded to a wife
who is quarrelsome, morose, and peevish, or a wife is married to a husband whose
temper and character is not a whit the less difficult to put up with, as St.
Augustine in his "Book of Confessions" assures us was the disposition of his
father, the husband of St. Monica, the cross must courageously be borne as the
bond is indissoluble. Slaves who have lost their liberty, prisoners condemned to
a life-long servitude, the sick who are suffering from an incurable disease, the
poor who are tempted to secure a momentary relief by theft or robbery, each and
all must turn their thoughts, not to the cross they are carrying, but to Him Who
has placed the cross upon them, if they wish to persevere in carrying it with
internal peace, and desire to gain the immense reward which is promised to them
in heaven when their sufferings here shall be over. Without doubt it is God Who
afflicts us with crosses, and He is our most loving Father, and without His
concurrence neither sorrow nor joy can befall us. Without doubt, too, whatever
happens to us by His will is the best for us, and ought to be so agreeable to us
as to force us to say with Christ: "The chalice which My Father has given Me
shall I not drink it?"[12] and with the Apostle: "But in all those things we
overcome because of Him that hath loved us."[13] Consequently those who cannot
lay aside their cross without sin must consider, not their present suffering,
but the crown which awaits them, and the possession of which will more than
counterbalance all the afflictions, all the griefs of this life. "For I reckon
that all the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory to come that shall be revealed in us,"[14] is what St. Paul said of
himself, and the judgment he passed on Moses was, "Rather choosing to be
afflicted with the people of God, than to have the pleasure of sin for a time,
esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasure of the
Egyptians. For he looked unto the reward."[15]

For the consolation of those who are forced to bear the
heavy weight of a cross through a long series of years, it will not be out of
place briefly to relate the story of two souls who failed to persevere, and
found a far heavier and eternal cross awaiting them. When the traitor Judas
began to reflect upon and detest the enormity of his treachery, he felt unable
to bear the shame and confusion of again meeting any one of the Apostles or
disciples of Christ, and he hanged himself with a halter. Far from escaping the
shame which he dreaded, he has only exchanged one cross for a heavier one. For
his confusion will be much greater when, at the Day of Judgment, he will have to
stand before all Angels and men, not only as the convicted betrayer of his
Master, but also as a self-murderer. What folly it was on his part to avoid a
little shame before the then little flock of Christ, who would all have been
meek and kind towards him like their Master, and would all have had him trust in
the mercy of his Redeemer, and not to have avoided the infamy and the ignominy
which he must suffer when he stands forth in the sight of all creatures as a
traitor to his God and a suicide! The other example is taken from the panegyric
of St. Basil on the forty martyrs. In the persecution of the Emperor Licinius,
forty soldiers were condemned to death for their steadfast belief in Christ.
They were ordered to be exposed naked during the night on a frozen lake, and to
gain their crown by the slow agony of being frozen to death. Beside the frozen
lake there was prepared a hot bath, into which any one who denied his faith had
liberty to plunge. Thirty-nine of the martyrs turned their thoughts to the
eternal happiness which awaited them, regarded not their present suffering,
which would soon be over, persevered with ease in their faith, and deserved to
receive from the hands of Jesus Christ their crown of everlasting glory. But one
pondered and brooded over his torments, could not persevere, and plunged into
the hot bath beside him. As the blood began to flow again through his frozen
limbs, he breathed forth his soul, which, branded with the disgrace of being a
denier of its God, forthwith descended to the eternal torments of hell. By
seeking to avoid death, this unhappy wretch found it, and exchanged a transitory
and comparatively light cross for one which is unbearable and eternal. The
imitators of these two miserable men are to be found among those who abandon
their religious life, who cast from them the yoke which is sweet and the burden
which is light, and when they least expect it, find themselves bound as slaves
to the heavier yoke of their various appetites which they can never satisfy, and
pressed down under the galling burden of innumerable sins. Those who refuse to
carry the Cross of Christ, are obliged to carry the bonds and the chains of
Satan.

We have come to the last word which our Lord pronounced. At
the point of death Jesus, "crying with a loud voice said, Father, into Thy hands
I commend my spirit."[1] We will explain each word separately. "Father."
Deservedly does He call God His Father, for He was a Son who had been obedient
to His Father even unto death, and it was proper that His last dying request,
which was certain to be heard, should be prefaced by such a tender name. "Into
Thy hands." In the Sacred Scriptures the hands of God signify the intelligence
and will of God, or in other words His wisdom and power, or, again, the
intelligence of God which knows all things, and the will of God which can do all
things. With these two attributes as with hands, God does all things, and stands
not in need of any instruments in the accomplishment of His will. St. Leo says:
"The will of God is His omnipotence."[2] Consequently, with God to will is to
do. "He hath done all things, whatsoever He would."[3] "I commend." I hand over
to your keeping My life, with the sure faith of its being restored when the time
of My resurrection shall come. "My Spirit." There is a diversity of opinion as
to the meaning of this word. Ordinarily the word spirit is synonymous with soul,
which is the substantial form of the body, but it can also mean life itself,
since breathing is the sign of life. Those who breathe live, and those die who
cease to breathe. If by the word spirit we here understand the Soul of Christ,
we must take care not to think that His Soul at the moment of it's separation
from the Body was in any danger. We are accustomed to commend with many prayers
and much anxiety the souls of the agonizing, because they are on the point of
appearing at the tribunal of a strict Judge to receive the reward or the
punishment of their thoughts, words, and deeds. The Soul of Christ was in no
such need, both because it enjoyed the Beatific Vision from the time of its
creation, was hypostatically united to the person of the Son of God, and could
even be called the Soul of God, and also because it was leaving the body
victorious and triumphant, an object of terror to the devils, not a soul to be
scared by them. If the word spirit then is to be taken as synonymous with soul,
the meaning of these words of our Lord, "I commend my spirit," is that the Soul
of Christ which was enclosed in the body as in a tabernacle was about to throw
itself into the hands of the Father as into a place of trust until it should
return to the body, according to the words of the Book of Wisdom: "The souls of
the just are in the hand of God."[4] However, the more generally accepted
meaning of the word in this passage is the life of the body. With this
interpretation the word may be thus amplified. I now give up My breath of life,
and as I cease to breathe I cease to live. But this breath, this life I entrust
to you, My Father, that in a short time you may again restore it to My Body. In
your keeping nothing perishes. In you all things live. By a word you call into
existence things which were not, and by a word you give life to those who had it
not.

We may gather that this is the true interpretation of the
word from the thirtieth Psalm, one of the verses of which our Lord was quoting:
"Thou wilt bring me out of this snare which they have hidden for me, for Thou
art my protector. Into Thy hands I commend my spirit."[5] In this verse the
prophet clearly means to signify life by the word spirit, since he beseeches God
to preserve his life, and not to suffer him to be killed by his enemies. If we
consider the context in the Gospel, it is clear that this is the meaning our
Lord also intended to convey. For after He had said, "Father, into Thy hands I
commend My spirit," the Evangelist adds: "And saying this He gave up the
ghost."[6] Now to expire is the same as to cease breathing, which is the
characteristic of those only who live. It cannot be said of the soul, which is
the substantial form of the body, as it can of the air we inhale, that we
breathe it as long as we live, and we cease breathing it as soon as we die.
Lastly, our interpretation is strengthened by the words of St. Paul: "Who in the
days of His flesh with a strong cry and tears offering up prayers and
supplications to Him that was able to save Him from death, was heard for His
reverence."[7] Some authors refer this passage to our Lord's prayer in the
Garden: "Abba, Father, all things are possible to Thee, remove this chalice from
Me."[8] But the reference is incorrect, as our Lord on that occasion neither
prayed with a loud cry, nor was His prayer heard, and He Himself did not wish to
be heard in order to be delivered from death. He prayed that the chalice of His
Passion might pass from Him to show His natural repugnance to death, and to
prove He was really man whose nature it is to dread its approach. And after this
prayer He added: "But not what I will, but what Thou wilt."[9] Consequently the
prayer in the Garden was not the prayer to which the Apostle alludes in his
Epistle to the Hebrews. Others, again, refer this text of St. Paul to the prayer
which Christ made on the Cross for those who were crucifying Him. "Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do."[10] On that occasion, however,
our Lord did not pray with a loud cry, and He did not pray for Himself, neither
did He pray to be delivered from death, and both these objects the Apostle
distinctly mentions as being the ends of our Lord's prayer. It remains then,
that the words of St. Paul must refer to the prayer Christ made with His dying
breath: "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit."[11] This prayer, St. Luke
says, He gave forth with a loud voice: "And Jesus crying with a loud voice,
said." The words of both St. Paul and St. Luke agree in this interpretation.
Moreover, as St. Paul says, our Lord prayed to be saved from death, and this
cannot mean that He prayed to be saved from death on the Cross, for in that case
His prayer was not heard, and the Apostle assures us it was heard. The true
meaning is that He prayed not to be swallowed up by death, but merely to taste
death and then return to life again. This is the evident explanation of the
words: "With a strong cry and tears offering up prayers and supplications to Him
that was able to save Him from death."[12] Our Lord could not but know that He
must die as He was already so near death, and He desired to be delivered from
death in the sense only of not being held captive by death. In other words, He
prayed for His speedy resurrection, and this prayer was readily granted, as He
rose again triumphant on the third day. This interpretation of the passage of
St. Paul proves beyond doubt that when our Lord said: "Into Thy hands I commend
my Spirit," the word spirit is synonymous with life and not with the soul. Our
Lord was not anxious about His soul, which He knew to be in safety, as it
already enjoyed the Beatific Vision, and had beheld its God face to face from
the moment of its creation, but He was anxious for His Body, which He foresaw
would soon be deprived of life, and He prayed that His body might not long be
kept in the sleep of death. This prayer was tenderly listened to and abundantly
granted.

CHAPTER XX: The first fruit to
be drawn from the consideration of the seventh Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

According to the practice we have so far pursued, we will
gather a few fruits from the consideration of the last word spoken by Christ on
the Cross, and from His Death, which immediately followed. And first we will
show the wisdom, the power, and the infinite charity of God from the very
circumstance which seems attended with such weakness and folly. His power is
clearly shown in this, that our Lord died whilst He was crying out with a loud
voice. From this we conclude that had it been His will He need not have died,
but He died because He willed. As a rule, people at the point of death gradually
lose their strength and voice, and at the last gasp are not able to articulate.
And so it was not without reason that the Centurion, on hearing such a loud cry
proceed from the lips of Christ, Who had lost almost every drop of blood in His
veins, exclaimed, "Indeed, this was the Son of God."[1]

Christ is a mighty Lord, inasmuch as He showed His power
even in His Death, not only by crying aloud with His last breath, but also by
making the earth tremble, by splitting rocks asunder, by opening graves, and
rending the veil of the Temple. We know, on the authority of St. Matthew, that
all these things happened at the Death of Christ, and each and all of these
events has its hidden meaning wherein is manifested His Divine wisdom. The
earthquake and the splitting of the rocks showed that His Death and Passion
would move men to penance, and would soften the hardest hearts. St. Luke gives
this interpretation to these mysterious omens, for after having mentioned them
he adds, that the Jews returned from the sight of the Crucifixion, "striking
their breasts."[2] The opening of the graves foreshadowed the glorious
resurrection of the dead, which was one of the results of the Death of Christ.
The rending of the veil of the Temple, whereby the Holy of Holies could be seen,
was a pledge that Heaven would be opened by the merits of His Death and Passion,
and that all the predestined should there behold God face to face. Nor was His
wisdom exhibited merely in these signs and wonders. It was exhibited also by
producing life out of death, as was prefigured by Moses producing water from the
rock,[3] and by the simile in which Christ compared Himself to a grain of
wheat.[4] For as it is necessary for the seed to be crushed in order to produce
the ear of corn, so by His Death on the Cross Christ enriched a countless
multitude of all nations by the life of grace. St. Peter expresses the same idea
when he speaks of Jesus Christ as "swallowing down death that we might be made
heirs of life everlasting."[5] As though he would say: The first man tasted the
forbidden fruit and subjected all his posterity to death; the Second Man tasted
the bitter fruit of death, and all who are born again in Him receive everlasting
life. Lastly, His wisdom was manifested in the manner of His Death, as from that
moment the Cross, than which previously nothing was more ignominious and
disgraceful, became an emblem so dignified and glorious that even kings consider
it an honour to wear it as an ornament. In her adoration of the Cross the Church
sings-- "Sweet are the nails, and sweet the wood, That bears a weight so sweet
and good."

St. Andrew, on beholding the cross on which he was to be
crucified, exclaimed: "Hail, precious cross, that hast been adorned by the
precious limbs of my Lord. Long have I desired thee, ardently have I sought
thee, uninterruptedly have I loved thee, and now I find thee ready to receive my
longing soul. Secure and full of joy I come to thee, and do thou receive me into
thy embrace, for I am the disciple of Christ my Lord, Who redeemed me by hanging
upon thee."

Now what shall we say of the infinite charity of God.
Previously to His Death our Lord said, "Greater love than this no man hath, that
a man lay down his life for his friends."[6] Christ literally laid down His
life, for against His will no one could deprive Him of it. "No man taketh it
away from Me; but I lay it down of Myself."[7] A man cannot show greater love
for his friends than by giving his life for them, since nothing is more precious
or dearer than life, as it is the foundation of every happiness. "For what doth
it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own
soul?"[8] that is, his life. Each one instinctively repels with all his strength
an attack made upon his life. We read in Job: "Skin for skin, and all that a man
hath will he give for his life."[9] So far, however, we have looked upon this
fact in a general way; we will now descend to particulars. In many ways, and in
an ineffable manner, Christ showed His love towards the whole human race, and to
each individual, by dying on the Cross. In the first place, His life was the
most precious of all lives, since it was the life of the Man-God, the life of
the most mighty of Kings, the life of the wisest of Doctors, the life of the
best of men. In the second place He laid down this life for His enemies, for
sinners, for ungrateful wretches. Moreover, He laid down His life in order that
at the price of His own Blood, these sinners, these ungrateful wretches, should
be snatched from the flames of hell. And lastly, He laid down His life to make
these enemies, these sinners, these ungrateful wretches, His brothers, co-heirs
and joint possessors with Him of eternal happiness in the kingdom of heaven.
Shall there now be one soul so callous and so ungrateful as not to love Jesus
Christ with its whole heart? Shall there be one Christian soul unwilling to bear
any affliction to secure His grace and live? O God, turn our hardened stony
hearts to Thee, and not our hearts only, but the hearts of all Christians, the
hearts of all men, even the hearts of infidels who have never known Thee, and of
atheists who have denied Thee.

CHAPTER XXI: The second fruit
to be drawn from the consideration of the seventh Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

Another and most profitable fruit would be gathered from
the consideration of this word if we could form the habit of frequently
repeating to ourselves the prayer which Christ our Master taught us on the Cross
with His dying breath; "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit."[1] Our Lord was
under no such necessity as we are for making such a prayer. He was the Son of
God and the Most Holy. We are servants and sinners, and consequently our holy
Mother and Mistress the Church, teaches us to make a constant use of this
prayer, and to repeat not only the part which our Lord used, but the whole of it
as it is found in the Psalms of David: "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit: Thou
hast redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth."[2] Our Lord omitted the last part
of the verse because He was the Redeemer and not one of the redeemed, but we who
have been redeemed with His precious Blood must not omit it. Moreover, Christ,
as the Only-Begotten Son of God, prayed to His Father, we, on the other hand,
pray to Christ as our Redeemer, and consequently we do not say: "Father, into
Thy hands I commend my spirit," but, "Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my
spirit, Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth." The Proto-martyr St.
Stephen was the first to use this prayer when at the point of death he
exclaimed: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."[3]

Our holy Mother the Church teaches us to make use of this
ejaculation on three different occasions. She teaches us to say it daily at the
beginning of Compline, as those who recite the Divine Office can bear me out.
Secondly, when we approach the Holy Eucharist, after the "Domine non sum
dignus," the priest says first for himself and then for the other communicants,
"Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit." Lastly, at the point of death,
she recommends all the faithful to imitate their dying Lord in the use of this
prayer. There can be no doubt that we are ordered to say this versicle at
Compline, because that part of the Divine Office is recited at the end of the
day, and St. Basil in his rules explains how easy it is when darkness first
comes on, and night sets in to commend our spirit to God, so that if a sudden
death overtake us we may not be found unprepared. The reason why the same
ejaculation should be used at the moment we receive the Blessed Eucharist is
clear, for the reception of the Blessed Eucharist is perilous and at the same
time so necessary that we cannot approach too often nor altogether absent
ourselves without danger: "Whoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of
the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and of the Blood of our Lord,"
and "eateth and drinketh judgment to himself."[4] And he who does not receive
the Body of Christ our Lord does not receive the bread of life, even life
itself. So we are surrounded with perils like starved and famished men who are
uncertain whether the food that is offered them is poisoned or not. With fear
and trembling then ought we to exclaim, Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst
enter under my roof, unless Thou in Thy goodness makest me worthy, and therefore
say only the word and my soul shall be healed. But since I have no reason to
doubt whether Thou wouldst deign to heal my wounds, I commend my spirit into Thy
hands, so that in an affair of such moment Thou mayest be near and assist my
soul which Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious Blood.

If some Christians would seriously think of these things
they would not be so eager to receive the priesthood with the object of gaining
their livelihood from the stipends they receive for their Masses. Such priests
are not as anxious to approach this great Sacrifice with a fitting preparation,
as they are anxious to obtain the end they propose to themselves, which is to
secure food for their bodies and not for their souls. There are others also,
attendants at the palaces of prelates or princes, who approach this tremendous
mystery through human respect, lest perchance they should incur the displeasure
of their masters by not communicating at the regularly constituted times. What
then is to be done? Is it more advantageous seldom to approach this Divine
Banquet? Certainly not. Far better is it to approach often but with due
preparation, for, as St. Cyril says, the less often we approach the less
prepared are we to receive the heavenly manna.

The approach of death is a time when it behoves us with
great ardour to repeat over and over again the prayer: "Into Thy hands, O Lord,
I commend my spirit; Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth." For if
our soul when it leaves the body falls into the hands of Satan, there is no hope
of salvation; if on the contrary, it falls into the paternal hands of God, there
is no longer any cause for fearing the power of our enemy. Consequently with
intense grief, with true and perfect contrition, with unbounded confidence in
the infinite mercy of our God we must at that dread moment over and over again
cry out: "Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit." And as in that last
moment, those who during life thought little of God are most severely tempted to
despair, because they have now no longer time for repentance, they must take up
the shield of faith, by remembering that it is written, "The wickedness of the
wicked shall not hurt him in what day soever he shall turn from his
wickedness,"[5] and the helmet of hope, by trusting in the goodness and
compassion of God, and continually repeat, "Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my
spirit," nor fail to add that part of the prayer which is the foundation of our
hope, "for Thou hast redeemed us, O Lord, the God of truth." Who can give back
to Jesus Christ the innocent Blood He has shed for us? Who can repay the ransom
with which He purchased us? St. Augustine, in the ninth book of his Confessions,
encourages each Christian soul to place unlimited confidence in our Redeemer,
because the work of redemption being once accomplished can never be useless or
invalid, unless we place an unsurmountable barrier to its effect by our
impenitence and despair.

CHAPTER XXII: The third fruit
to be drawn from the consideration of the seventh Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

The third fruit to be gathered is this. At the approach of
death we must not rely too much on the alms, the fastings, and the prayers of
our relations and friends. Many during life forget all about their souls, and
think of nothing else and do nothing else than heap up money so that their
children or nephews may abound in riches. When death approaches they begin for
the first time to think of their own souls, and as they have left all their
worldly substance to their relatives, they also commend to them their souls to
be assisted by their alms, their prayers, the Sacrifice of the Mass, and other
good works. The example of Christ does not teach us to act in this manner. He
commended His Spirit not to His relations but to His Father. St. Peter does not
tell us to act in this manner, but to "commend" our "souls in good deeds to the
faithful Creator."[1]

I do not find fault with those who order or seek or desire
that alms should be given and the holy Sacrifice offered for the repose of their
souls, but I blame those who place too much confidence in the prayers of their
children and relatives, since experience shows us the dead are soon forgotten. I
complain also that in an affair of such moment as eternal salvation Christians
should not work for themselves, should not themselves bestow their alms, and
secure friends by whom according to the Gospel they may be received "into
everlasting dwellings."[2] Lastly I severely reprehend those who do not obey the
Prince of the Apostles, who orders us to commend our souls to our faithful
Creator not by our words only but by our good deeds. The deeds which will be of
advantage to us in the sight of God are those which efficaciously and truly
render us pious Christians. Let us listen to the voice from Heaven which sounded
in the ears of St. John: "And I heard a voice from Heaven, saying to me: Write,
blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. From henceforth now, saith the Spirit,
that they may rest from their labours, for their works follow them."[3] The good
works therefore that are done whilst we are living, and not those which are done
for us after death by our children and relatives, are the good works which will
follow us, particularly if they are not only good in themselves, but, as St.
Peter not without a hidden meaning expresses it, are well done. Many can
enumerate countless good works of their own--many sermons, daily Masses,
recitation of the Divine Office for years, the annual fast of Lent, frequent
almsgiving; but when these are weighed in the Divine scales, and there is a
rigid scrutiny whether they have been well done, with a right intention, with
due devotion, at their proper time and place, with a heart full of gratitude to
God, oh, how many things which appeared meritorious will turn to our detriment?
how many things which to the judgment of men appeared gold and silver and
precious stones, will be found to be wood and straw and stubble fit only for the
fire? This consideration alarms me not a little, and the nearer I approach
death, for the Apostle warns me, "That which decayeth and groweth old is near
its end,"[4] the clearer do I see the necessity of following the advice of St.
John Chrysostom. That holy doctor tells us not to think much of our good works,
because if they are really good, that is well performed, they are written by God
in the Book of Life, and there is no danger of our being defrauded of our just
merits, but he encourages us to think rather of our evil deeds, and endeavour to
make atonement for them with a contrite heart and a humble spirit, with many
tears and a serious penance."[5] Those who follow this advice may exclaim with
great confidence at the moment of death: "Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my
spirit: Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth."

CHAPTER XXIII: The fourth
fruit to be drawn from the consideration of the seventh Word spoken by Christ
upon the Cross.

There follows a fourth fruit to be gathered from the most
happy manner in which this prayer of Jesus Christ was heard, which should
animate us to greater fervour in commending our spirits to God. With great truth
does the Apostle say that our Lord Jesus Christ "was heard for His
reverence."

Our Lord prayed to His Father, as we have shown above, for
the speedy resurrection of His Body. The prayer was granted, for the
resurrection was not prolonged longer than was necessary to establish the fact
that the Body of our Lord was really separated from His Soul. Unless it could be
proved that His Body had been really deprived of life, the resurrection and the
structure of Christian faith which is built upon that mystery would fall to the
ground. Christ ought to have laid in the tomb for at least forty hours to
accomplish the sign of the Prophet Jonas which He Himself said was a figure of
His own Death. In order that the resurrection of Christ might be hastened as
much as possible, and that it might be evident His prayer had been heard, the
three days and the three nights which Jonas spent in the whale's belly, were, as
regards the resurrection of Christ, reduced to one full day and parts of two
other days. So the time our Lord's Body was in the tomb cannot properly, but by
a figure of speech only, be called three days and three nights. God the Father
not only heard the prayer of Christ by accelerating the time of His
resurrection, but by giving to His dead Body a life incomparably better than it
enjoyed before. Before His Death the life of Christ was mortal; the life
restored to Him was immortal. Before His Death the life of Christ was passible,
and subject to hunger and thirst, fatigue and wounds; the life restored to Him
was impassible. Before His Death the life of Christ was corporeal; the life
restored to Him was spiritual, and the Body was so subject to the spirit that in
the twinkling of an eye it could be borne wherever the Soul wished. The Apostle
gives the reason why the prayer of Christ was so readily granted by saying that
"He was heard for His reverence." The Greek word conveys the idea of reverential
fear which was a distinguishing trait of the regard which Christ felt for His
Father. Thus Isaias in enumerating the gifts of the Holy Ghost which were to
adorn the Soul of Christ says: "And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,
the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of
fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and of godliness, and He shall be filled with
the spirit of the fear of the Lord."[2] In proportion as the Soul of Christ was
filled with a reverential fear for His Father, the Father was filled with
complacency in His Son: "This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased."[3]
And as the Son reverenced the Father, so the Father ever heard His prayer and
granted what He asked.

It follows then that if we desire to be heard by our
Heavenly Father, and have our prayers granted, we must imitate Christ in
approaching our Father Who is in heaven with great reverence, and prefer His
honour before all things else. It will thus come to pass that our petitions will
be heard, and especially the one on which our lot for eternity depends, that at
the approach of death God should preserve our souls, which have been commended
to His keeping, from the roaring lion which is standing ready to receive its
prey. Let no one think, however, that reverence to God is shown merely in
genuflections, in uncovering the head, and such external marks of worship and
honour. In addition to all this, reverential fear implies a great dread of
offending the Divine Majesty, an intimate and continual horror of sin not from
the fear of punishment, but from the love of God. He was endowed with this
reverential fear who dared not even to think of sinning against God: "Blessed is
the man that feareth the Lord, he shall delight exceedingly in His
commandments."[4] Such a man truly fears God, and may consequently be called
blessed, since he strives to observe all His commandments. The holy widow Judith
"was greatly renowned among all because she feared the Lord very much."[5] She
was both young and rich but never gave or yielded to any occasion of sin. She
remained with her maidens secluded in her chamber, and " wore haircloth upon her
loins, and fasted every day except on the feasts of the House of Israel."[6]
Behold with what zeal, even under the Old Law, which allowed greater freedom
than the Gospel, a young and rich woman avoided sins of the flesh and for no
other reason than " because she feared the Lord very much." The Sacred Scripture
mentions the same of holy Job who made a compact with his eyes not to look at a
virgin, that is, he would not look at a virgin lest any shadow of an impure
thought should cross his mind. Why did Holy Job take such precautions? "I made a
covenant with my eyes that I would not so much as think upon a virgin. For what
part should God from above have in me, and what inheritance the Almighty from on
high?"[7] Which means that if any impure thought should defile him he would no
longer be the inheritance of God, nor would God be his portion. If I wished to
mention the examples of the saints of the New Law I should never finish. This,
then, is the reverential fear of the saints. If we were filled with the same
fear there would be nothing which we could not easily obtain from our Heavenly
Father.

CHAPTER XXIV: The fifth fruit
to be drawn from the consideration of the seventh Word spoken by Christ upon the
Cross.

The last fruit is drawn from the consideration of the
obedience shown by Christ in His last words and in His Death upon the Cross. The
words of the Apostle: "He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even
the death of the Cross,"[1] received their complete fulfillment when our Lord
expired with these words upon His lips: "Father, into Thy hands I commend My
Spirit." In order to gather the most precious fruit from the tree of the holy
Cross it must be our endeavour to examine everything that can be said about the
obedience of Christ. He, the Master and the Pattern of every virtue, tendered to
His heavenly Father an obedience so ready and so perfect as to render it
impossible to imagine or conceive anything greater.

In the first place, the obedience of Christ to His Father
began with His Conception and continued uninterruptedly to His Death. The life
of our Lord Jesus Christ was one perpetual act of obedience. The Soul of Christ
from the moment of its creation enjoyed the exercise of its free will, was full
of grace and wisdom, and consequently, even when enclosed in His Mother's womb,
was capable of practicing the virtue of obedience. The Psalmist speaking in the
Person of Christ says: "In the head of the book it is written of Me that I
should do Thy will. O My God, I have desired it, and Thy law in the midst of My
Heart."[2] These words may be thus simplified: " In the head of the book"--that
is from the beginning to the end of the inspired writings of Scripture--it is
shown that I was chosen and sent into the world "to do Thy will. O My God, I
have desired it," and freely accepted it. I have placed "Thy law," Thy
commandment, Thy desire, "in the midst of My Heart," to ponder upon it
constantly, to obey it accurately and promptly. The very words of Christ Himself
mean the same. "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, that I may
perfect His work."[3] For as a man does not take food now and again and at
distant intervals during life, but daily eats and takes a pleasure in it, so
Christ our Lord was intent upon being obedient to His Father every day of His
life. It was His joy and His pleasure. "I came down from Heaven not to do My own
will, but the will of Him that sent Me."[4] And again. "He that sent Me is with
Me, and He hath not left Me alone; for I do always the things that please
Him."[5] And since obedience is the most excellent of all sacrifices, as Samuel
told Saul,[6] so every action which Christ performed during His life was a
sacrifice most pleasing to the Divine Majesty. The first prerogative then of our
Lord's obedience is that it lasted from the moment of His Conception to His
Death upon the Cross.

In the second place, the obedience of Christ was not
confined to one particular kind of duty, as is sometimes the case with other
men, but it extended to everything which it pleased the Eternal Father to order.
From this arose the many vicissitudes in our Lord's life. At one time we see Him
in the desert neither eating nor drinking, perhaps even depriving Himself of
sleep, and living "with the beasts."[7] At another time we see Him mixing up
with men, eating and drinking with them. Now He is living in obscurity and
silence at Nazareth. Now He appears before the world endowed with eloquence and
wisdom, and working miracles. On one occasion He exerts His authority and drives
those from the temple who were defiling it by bartering within its precincts. On
another occasion He hides Himself, and like a weak powerless man withdraws from
the crowd. All these different actions required a soul devoid of self, and
devoted to the will of another. Unless He had previously set the example of
renouncing everything which human nature cherishes, He would not have said to
His disciples: "If any man will come after Me let him deny himself,"[8] let him
give up his own will, renounce his own judgment. Unless He had been prepared to
lay down His life with such willingness as to make it appear He really hated it,
He would not have encouraged His disciples with such words as, "If any man come
to Me, and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren
and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple."[9] This
renunciation of self, which was so conspicuous in our Lord's character, is the
true root and, as it were, mother of obedience, and those who are not prepared
for this self-sacrifice will never acquire the perfection of obedience. How can
a man promptly obey the will of another if he prefers his own will and judgment
to that of another? The vast orbs of heaven obey the laws of nature both in
their rising and in their setting. The Angels are obedient to the will of God.
They have no will of their own in opposition to that of God, but are happily
united with God, and are one spirit with Him. And so the Psalmist sings: "Bless
the Lord, all ye His Angels: you that are mighty in strength and execute His
word, hearkening to the voice of His orders."[10]

In the third place, the obedience of Christ was not only
infinite in its length and breadth, but in proportion as by suffering it was
humble in the lowest degree, so as to its reward is it exalted. The third
characteristic then of the obedience of Christ is that it was tried by suffering
and humiliations. To accomplish the Will of His heavenly Father, the Infant
Christ, with the full use of every faculty, consented to be enclosed for nine
months in the dark prison of His Mother's womb. Other infants feel not this
privation as they have not the use of reason, but Christ had the use of reason
and must have dreaded the confinement in the narrow womb, even of her whom He
had chosen to be His Mother. Through obedience to His Father, and from the love
He bore to man, He overcame this dread, and the Church says: "When Thou didst
take upon Thee to deliver Man, Thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb." Again,
our dear Lord needed no small amount of patience and humility, to assume the
manners and the weaknesses of a child, when He was not only wiser than Solomon,
but was the Man " in Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge."

Consider, moreover, what must have been His forbearance and
meekness, His patience and humility, to have remained for eighteen years, from
His twelfth to His thirtieth year, hidden in an obscure house at Nazareth, to
have been regarded as the son of a carpenter, to have been called a carpenter,
to have been thought an ignorant uneducated man, when at the same time His
wisdom surpassed that of all Angels and men together. During His public life He
acquired great renown by His preaching and miracles, but He suffered great wants
and endured many hardships. "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air
nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His Head."[12] Footsore and
fatigued He would sit Himself down at the side of a well. And yet He could
easily have surrounded Himself with an abundance of all things by the ministry
of men or Angels, had He not been restrained by the obedience He owed His
Father. Shall I dwell on the contradictions He suffered, on the insults He
endured, on the calumnies which were spoken against Him, on the scourges and the
crown of thorns of His Passion, on the ignominy of the Cross itself? His humble
obedience has taken such deep root that we can only wonder at it and admire it;
we cannot perfectly imitate it.

There is yet a deeper depth to His obedience. The obedience
of Christ finally reached this stage, that with a loud voice He cried out:
"Father into Thy hands I commend My Spirit. And saying this He gave up the
ghost."[13] It would appear that the Son of God wished to address His Father in
this wise: "This commandment have I received of you, My Father,"[14] to lay down
My life in order to receive it again from Your hands. The time has now come for
Me to execute this last commandment of Yours. And although the separation of My
Soul and Body will be a bitter separation, because from the moment of their
creation they have remained united in great peace and love, and although death
found an entrance into this world through the malice of the devil, and human
nature rebels against death, nevertheless Thy commandment is fixed deep in the
inmost recesses of My Heart, and shall prevail even over death itself. Therefore
am I prepared to taste the bitterness of death, and drink to the dregs the
chalice you have prepared for Me. But as it is your wish that I should lay down
My life in such a manner as to receive it back again from You, so "into Your
hands I commend My Spirit," in order that You may restore it to Me at Your
pleasure. And then, having received His Father's permission to die, He bowed
down His Head in token of His obedience, and gave up the ghost. His obedience
conquered and prevailed. Not only did it receive its reward in the Person of
Christ, Who, because He humbled Himself beneath all, and obeyed all for the sake
of His Father, has been assumed into heaven, and from His throne there governs
and rules all, but it has its reward also in this, that all who imitate Christ
shall ascend the highest heavens, shall be placed as masters over all the goods
of their Lord, and shall be sharers of His royal dignity and possessors of His
kingdom for ever. On the other hand, the virtue of obedience has gained such a
signal victory over rebellious, disobedient, and proud spirits, as to make them
tremble and fly from the sight of the Cross of Christ.

Whosoever desires to attain to the glory of heaven, and to
find true peace and rest for his soul, must imitate the example of Christ. Not
only religious who have bound themselves by a vow of obedience to their
Superior, who holds the place of God in their regard, but all men who wish to be
the disciples and brothers of Christ must aspire to gain this spiritual victory
over themselves, otherwise they will be miserable for ever with the proud demons
of hell. Inasmuch as obedience is a Divine precept, and has been imposed upon
all, it is necessary for all. To all without exception were the words of Christ
addressed: "Take up My yoke upon you."[15] To all preachers of the Gospel does
He say; "Obey your prelates and be subject to them."[16] To all kings does
Samuel say: "Doth the Lord desire holocausts and victims, and not rather that
the Voice of the Lord should be obeyed? For obedience is better than
sacrifices."[17] And to show the enormity of the sin of disobedience he added:
"Because it is like the sin of witchcraft to rebel "against the commands of the
Lord, or the commands of those who hold the place of the
Lord.

For the sake of those who voluntarily devote themselves to
the practice of obedience, and submit their wills to that of their Superior, I
will say a few words on their happy state of life. The prophet Jeremias,
inspired by the Holy Ghost, says: "It is good for a man, when he hath borne the
yoke from his youth. He shall sit solitary and hold his peace, because he hath
taken it up upon himself."[18] How great is the happiness contained in these
words: "It is good!" From the rest of the sentence we may conclude that they
embrace everything that is useful, honourable, agreeable, in fact, everything in
which happiness may consist. The man that has been accustomed from his youth to
the yoke of obedience, will be free throughout life from the crushing yoke of
carnal desires. St. Augustine, in the eighth book of his Confessions,
acknowledges the difficulty which a soul, that for years had obeyed the
concupiscence of the flesh, must experience in shaking off the yoke, and on the
other hand he speaks of the facility and of the bliss we experience in carrying
the yoke of the Lord if the snares of vice have not entrapped the soul.
Moreover, it is no inconsiderable gain to obtain merit for every action in the
sight of God. The man who performs no action of his own free will, but does
everything through obedience to his Superior, offers to God in each action a
sacrifice most pleasing to Him, because as Samuel says: "Obedience is better
than sacrifices."[19] St. Gregory gives a reason for this. "In offering
victims," he says, "we sacrifice the flesh of another; by obedience our own will
is sacrificed."[20] And what is still more admirable in this is, that even if a
Superior commits a sin in giving any order, a subject not only does not sin, but
even obtains merit by his obedience provided the command itself is not
manifestly against the law of God. The Prophet goes on to say; "He shall sit
solitary and hold his peace." The words mean that the solitary or the obedient
man is at rest because he has found peace for his soul. He who has renounced his
own will, and has devoted himself entirely to accomplish the Divine will which
is manifested to him by the voice of his Superior, desires nothing, seeks for
nothing, thinks of nothing, longs for nothing, but is free from all anxious
cares, and "with Mary sits at the Lord's feet hearing His word."[21] The
solitary sits down, both because he dwells with those who "have but one heart
and one soul,"[22] and because he loves none with a private, individual love,
but all in Christ and for the sake of Christ. He is silent because he quarrels
with no one, disputes with no one, has litigation with no one. The reason of
this great tranquility is "because he hath taken it up upon himself" and is
translated from the ranks of men to the ranks of Angels. There are many who busy
themselves about themselves, and act like animals devoid of reason. They seek
after the things of this world, esteem only those things which delight the
senses, feed their carnal desires, and are avaricious, impure, gluttonous, and
intemperate. Others lead a purely human life, and remain entirely shut up within
themselves, such as those who endeavour to peer into the secrets of nature, or
rest satisfied with delivering precepts of morals. Others, again, raise
themselves above themselves, and with the special help and assistance of God
lead a life that is rather angelical than human. These abandon all they possess
in this world, and by denying their own wills can say with the Apostle: "Our
conversation is in heaven."[23] Emulating the purity, the contemplation, and the
obedience of the Angels, they lead the life of Angels in this world. The Angels
are never sullied with the stain of sin, "always see the face of My Father, Who
is in heaven,"[24] and, disengaged from all things else, are wholly intent on
accomplishing the will of God. "Bless the Lord, all ye His Angels, you that are
mighty in strength, and execute His word, hearkening to the voice of His
orders."[25] This is the happiness of religious life. Those who on earth imitate
as far as possible the purity and obedience of the Angels, shall undoubtedly
become partakers of their glory in Heaven, especially if they follow Christ,
their Lord and Master, Who "humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even
the death of the Cross:"[26] and "whereas indeed He was the Son of God, He
learned obedience by the things which He suffered:"[27] that is, He learned by
His own experience that genuine obedience is tried by suffering, and
consequently His example not only teaches us obedience, but teaches us that the
foundation of true and perfect obedience is humility and patience. It is no
proof that we are truly and perfectly obedient in obeying in things that are
honourable and pleasant. Such commands do not prove whether it is the virtue of
obedience or some other motive that impels us to act. But a man who shows a
promptitude and alacrity in obeying in all things that are humiliating and
laborious, proves that he is a true disciple of Christ, and has learnt the
meaning of true and perfect obedience.

St. Gregory skillfully shows what is necessary to the
perfection of obedience in different circumstances. He says: "Sometimes we may
receive agreeable, at other times disagreeable commands. It is of the greatest
importance to remember that in some circumstances, if anything of self-love
creeps into our obedience, our obedience is null; in other circumstances our
obedience is less virtuous in proportion as there is less self- sacrifice. For
example: a religious is placed in some honourable post, is appointed Superior of
a monastery; now if he undertakes this office through the mere human motive of
liking it, he will be altogether wanting in obedience. That man is not directed
by obedience, who in undertaking agreeable duties is the slave of his own
ambition. Again, a religious receives some humiliating order, if, for example,
when his self-love urges him to aspire to superiority he is ordered to fulfill
some office to which neither distinction nor dignity is attached, he will lessen
the merit of his obedience in proportion as he fails in forcing his will to
desire the post, because unwillingly and by constraint he obeys in a matter
which he considers unworthy of his talents or his experience. Obedience
invariably loses some of its perfection if the desire for lowly and humble
occupations does not in some manner or another accompany the forced obligation
of undertaking them. In commands, therefore, which are repugnant to nature,
there must be some self-sacrifice, and in commands which are agreeable to nature
there must be no self-love. In the former case obedience will be the more
meritorious the closer it is united to the Divine will by desires; in the latter
case obedience will be the more perfect the more it is separated from any
longing for worldly renown. We shall better understand the different marks of
true obedience by considering the actions of two saints who are now in
Heaven.[28] When Moses was pasturing sheep in the desert, he was called by the
Lord, Who spoke to him through the mouth of an Angel from the burning bush, to
command the Jewish people in their exodus from the land of Egypt. In his
humility Moses hesitated about accepting so glorious a command. 'I beseech Thee,
Lord,' he said, 'I am not eloquent from yesterday and the day before, and since
Thou hast spoken to Thy servant I have more impediment and slowness of
tongue.'[29] He wished to decline the office himself, and begged that it might
be given to another. 'I beseech Thee, Lord, send Whom Thou wilt send.'[30]
Behold! he urges his want of eloquence as an excuse to the Author and Giver of
speech, to be exonerated from an employment which was honourable and
authoritative. St. Paul, as he tells the Galatians,[31] was Divinely admonished
to go up to Jerusalem. On his journey he meets the Prophet Agabus, and learns
from him what he will have to suffer in Jerusalem. 'Agabus, when he was come to
us, took Paul's girdle, and binding his own feet and hands he said: Thus saith
the Holy Ghost: The man whose girdle this is, the Jews shall bind in this manner
in Jerusalem, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.'[32]
Whereupon St. Paul immediately answered, 'I am ready not only to be bound, but
to die also in Jerusalem for the Name of the Lord Jesus.'[33] Undaunted by the
revelation he received of the sufferings in store for him, he proceeded to
Jerusalem. He really longed to suffer, yet as a man he must have felt some
dread; but this very dread was overcome, and rendered him more courageous.
Self-love, then did not find a place in the honourable duty which was imposed
upon Moses, because he had to overcome himself in order to assume the command of
the Jewish people. Voluntarily did St. Paul set out to meet adversity. He was
aware of the persecutions which awaited him, and his fervour made him long for
still heavier crosses. The one wished to decline the renown and glory of being
the leader of a nation, even when God visibly called him; the other was prepared
and willing to embrace hardships and tribulations for the love of God. With the
example of these two saints before us, we must resolve, if we desire to obtain
the perfection of obedience, to allow the will of our Superior only to impose
honourable employments upon us, and to force our own will to embrace difficult
and humiliating offices."[34] Thus far St. Gregory. Christ our Lord, the Master
of all, had previously approved by His conduct the doctrine which St. Gregory
here lays down. When He knew the people were coming to take Him away by force
and make Him their King, "He fled into the mountains Himself alone."[35] But
when He knew that the Jews and soldiers with Judas at their head were coming to
make Him a prisoner and to crucify Him, according to the command which He had
received from His Father, He willingly went forth to meet them, and allowed
Himself to be captured and bound. Christ, therefore, our good Master, has given
us an example of the perfection of obedience, not by His preaching and words
only, but by His deeds and in truth. He reverenced His Father by an obedience
which was founded on suffering and humiliations. The Passion of Christ exhibits
the most brilliant example of the most exalted and ennobling of virtues. It is a
model which they should ever have before their eyes, who have been called by God
to aspire to the perfection of obedience and the imitation of
Christ.